Pop-ups and spam create a negative view of all ads

by Staff,, Brand Republic 17-Apr-03, 15:40

NEW YORK - The overload of spam and pop-up advertising on the internet makes consumers negative towards traditional forms of advertising and more proactive in avoiding them.

A new survey conducted by PlanetFeedback has revealed that an overwhelming 97% of consumers feel "furious" when pop-ups appear without warning, and only 2% say that they click on them.

Furthermore, the survey says that as people use technology to filter out unwanted pop-ups and spam, it is making them more sympathetic to technologies that filter out television ads.

Of the 13% of people who have access to television ad-filtering technology, such as TiVo, 60% said that they use it, accounting for an 8% loss in TV advertising effectiveness.

The survey found that 10% of people find traditional ad forms, namely television, radio, print and billboards, annoying. However, people who received more than 50 spam email messages a day are more annoyed by TV ads than those who receive less spam.

The more spam people receive, the more likely they are to download filters, with a fifth of the consumers who receive more than 25 unsolicited emails a day using spam or pop-up filters.

Peter Blackshaw, founder and chief marketing officer of PlanetFeedback, said: "Spam and intrusive online ad formats threaten the entire advertising space with a trust-eroding, acid-rain effect. We are also witnessing the emergence of a generation of well-trained ad skippers, aided by spam- and pop-up filtering programmes.

"The combination of eroded trust in advertising and accelerated adoption of ad filters has significant financial consequences for advertisers and marketers."

PlanetFeedback is a Cincinnati-based consumer intelligence company.

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