Essay Topic:

The role of the pop-up ads in the whole system of web-advertising.

Essay Questions:

Why has advertising become an integral part of our life? What role does web-advertising in the general system of advertising? Do popup ads cause inconvenient to the potential audience?

Thesis Statement:

Being so popular among diverse classes, people of different group ages and tastes the Web became one of the most attractive places to have advertisements in.

Pop-up Ads in Web Advertising essay

 

Introduction: Advertising has long ago become an integral part of our lives. What once was a very rare thing nowadays is something we see everywhere and something that has become an outstanding “ trade engine”. To make this engine work contemporary businessmen try different kinds of advertising. The main trick is to have the advertisement in the place of a “mass concourse” of people. We all have observed how hard they try in getting our attention to the products, offering us almost impossible discounts and telling how much they care about us. This is a part of our lives and though there have been protests against it nothing seems to change. Therefore people accept it. Advertising is not about bugging us. It is in the first place about “healthy” competition, where you are offered products, evaluate the, find what is most suitable for you and buy it.So many people work nowadays that if it had not been for the advertisements they would no even now that Christmas is coming up soon. In comparison to the old ways today’s most visited place or as we called it “mass concourse” of people can be found not only in movie theatres, subways or simply on the streets. The place where companies have the best chances to attract their customer and provide full detailed information about their product is the Web. “For marketers, the Web has swiftly emerged as a key new-media platform”[Thorson 10]. Being so popular among diverse classes, people of different group ages and tastes the Web became on of the most attractive places to have advertisements in. As people start spending less time outside and more time on the jobs, most of the time they are on the web, because any office has Internet-access. There is also a computer in the majority of the families. So either people are on-line in their offices or they are on-line when they return back home. This makes the Web-market very important n the development of business in the country. There are advertisements on the Web; almost every single site has commercials or references to some products. And as they are stationary there is nothing people can do than watch them all the time. These kinds of advertisements greatly increase the profit of the company. They take a great advantage from letting people shop for anything sitting in their houses and spending a minimum amount of time on it.

There is no way to any company to give it away because giving it away would mean “the beginning of the end”. The Chairman-CEO of Procter& Gamble, Mr.Artzt said: ”We can’t be sure that ad-supported TV programming will have a future”[Thorson 9]. So as the ordinary media cannot cope with these demands the Web is there to solve any financial difficulties. It is the fastest and the most qualitative way to make your brand known all over the world. We, ourselves, do not even notice how we start liking some of them and except to see them again. A big problem that has aroused is the pop-u ads problem. There have been heard so many complaints about them, that it might seem that they are even worse that all the other advertisements we watch. It is believed that any web page or ad that appears without the person’s asking for it is officious and is an obtruding thing. Look around us! Our streets are full of numerous kinds of ads. Do they appear there with your permission? Does anybody ask you if you want it? At least the pop-up advertisements are not in front of your eyes all of the time like the others that you already are used to and do not consider harmful anymore. It is also important to mention that pop-up advertisements have a lot of more respect towards the customer than the others. Dealing with the pop-up advertisements you can choose whether you need it or not. So it gives us the opportunity to choose unlike stationary advertisements. You can close it anytime you want unless you do not get interested in what is being offered. But before getting very deep in the analysis of the pop-up ads and web advertising we want to make sure we understand them as the same things. Pop-up windows can be any size, but most often they are small and you can close or maximize them by clicking on the button-commands on top of these windows; it is usually a scaled-down browser window [Adams 65].

Pop-up ads alongside with standard web advertising have taken a lot of pressure lately and this is because people believe that they are intrusive. Pop-up ads turned out to be the “scapegoat” for all the people that hate advertising. Nevertheless, we need to be objective and understand whether they really hurt us! As far, as we are concerned, pop-up ads are not being such a bad thing after all and the following facts speak for themselves. Internet surfers claim that these ads irritate them; they say they keep popping up at the most inadequate to the end moments.

But the main thing is that the more it works for the companies that are advertised the more it works for the surfers, too. To lead the reader to the main advantages of web advertising for the surfer we want to stop on the advantages for the companies first. Advantages for the companies equals advantages for the web-surfers. And if some people so not understand it is necessary to explain it. Well, in the first place pop-up ads are way more effective than any other banner ad. It is possible to trace that the “click-through rate” is 12 percent higher than with the banner advertisements. As it is often said that this percentage may be half-false we reduced the percentage but we still get 6,5% for pop-up ads [New Architect, Feb. 2003]. The company definitely increases its profit and becomes well known. Owing to its effectiveness it has a high cost to the advertisers. As they pay a lot of money to be on them this also influences the surfer, too.

The reason the surfer needs to revise his opinion on these ads because it is owing to them Internet costs decreases and becomes more accessible and affordable for people. It is like sponsoring or commercials on TV. Of course they may be disturbing sometimes but do you keep complaining when a series of commercials you see a high-quality video? The reduction of the Internet cost also makes an impact to the development of our education. More people get the opportunity to raise the level of knowledge and widen up their outlook. Some people would take it for a boon to have the opportunity to surf even with the pop-up ads.

Why not to objectively evaluate what advantages it brings to the society and economy and estimate if these advantages are more important than just being irritated by an ad you did not allow to appear. We learn everything from a comparison, so when comparing pop-ads remember that they not only give you opportunity to choose but also decrease you Internet-bill every month. Someone is paying for you simply choosing or not choosing his product. We just need to place our priorities in the right order. By using the pop-up ads the companies Internet shopping cost goes down. The explanation to this is the same as for the decreasing cost of Internet. The faster the companies become known and the faster they get their ROI (return on investments) the more is the probability that they will reduce the price on their products and offer a wide range of sales and discounts. In such a way they encourage Internet shoppers to shop with them again. This factor is a strong stimulus for understanding that this is not a single-handed effort performed by a surfer when facing pop-up ads. It is a sort of a compromise business partnership that brings profit to both parties. Of course to understand these people have to posses the ability to analyze the given situation and not to examine in a proper manner saying: ”They are very annoying. Nope, never. I just close them instantly". It is a matter of business relations and has to be seen from this point of view.

Some people may think that these ads are not a very good idea. Nevertheless, you do not get anything for observing all the advertisement boards on the streets, through you consider it annoying, too. Why not to take the plunge and get whatever we can from this pop-up cooperation? Pop-ups create extra sales for different products. They rapidly increase the number of customer of the company. There is no way we can get rig of it and why should we do it if ads give us benefits? But if we do not accept them we can try to offer some ideas in order to change them. Nobody said advertisers do not take suggestions for changes. So you can go ahead if you want to!

There is no way our society will change it until competition exists! It is a normal phenomenon that a company wants to attract the customer and want to do it by any possible ways it can. TV advertisements are already in the past and do not have they same influence anymore. As our society develops companies need to maintain their business on a proper level. This level is maintained through hard job and persistence including new advertisement ways. If they manage to do it through advertising including pop-ups why stop them, especially taking into account that we get benefits from it. Of course it is up to every surfer to decide whether being “annoyed by pop-ups” outweighs the positive sides of the issue. The conversion rates and return on investment (ROI) is highly related to the web advertisements of any company with Internet shops. The Dynamic Logic study results show that “72 percent of U.S. Web users accept limited use of pop-ups, and 47 percent agree as many as two to six ads per hour are "appropriate" to support free content”[Adams 49]. So in spite of all the opinions on how bad pop-ups can be people actually show enough tolerance. It is really very obvious that the free sites the surfers can use are supported by ads, and viewing online ads, including the pop-ups is the price they pay to avoid the fee.

Once again we want to point out that it is cooperation that seems to be the main principle of ad-surfer relations. Does this interaction honestly hurt us so much? Or is it just the usual rebel against the media that we are so used to? It is more than strange that somebody may still think that rebelling against web advertisements they rebel against something evil. Everybody gets a piece of the cake: the advertiser gets ”Exposure and increased brand awareness”[Thorson 34] and free-sites, low cost Internet and low cost Internet shopping is what the “ pop-up victims” get.

Anyhow, the disadvantages of the pop-up ads and web advertising in general are the same as of the standard TV and street advertisements. There will always be people for it and against it. The basic issue is to try to understand that web advertising has become an integral part of the economical life of almost every country and it can be eliminated by no means. The basic reason for this is the fact that it brings benefits for both advertisers and net-surfers. It is very often forgotten and therefore ads are often criticized. Our goal is to make people understand that our world is pure business and the pop-up ads issue should be analyzed from this point of view, too.

Does it really hurt not paying for visiting various web sites? Of course, the companies do take risks using pop-up ads, because some conservative surfers may be truly against it. Nevertheless, they do not just take from consumers; they also give something back, too. This is a very important thing to realize. We have to break down the stereotypes down and start getting advantages from what is going on around us in the advertisement world. What is a pop-up advertisement after all? It is the same advertisement we see on the web, but a little different in order to catch your attention. As far, as we are concerned, it is a new way for you to get the information about different products you might be interested in and need. It is a source for saving money on Internet and Internet shopping. It is an opportunity for the companies to spread their brand, become more that just profitable. If a country has companies like that its economical status improves day by day through widening the markets. So web advertisements do bring a lot of positive aspects to their consumers. Then why do people get irritated with it?

Conclusion: Pop-up ads are just one of “those” advertisements and if somebody does not like them he may cope up with something new. Until then people need to think rationally and not to no too emotional when it goes about web advertisements. The analysis of this issue can easily take us to the conclusion that pop-up ads and web advertisement can be as attractive for people as they are for the advertisers. So as in every business both sides deal with the satisfaction of all their needs. Both of them have the “tool” to achieve a compromise and a link establishment so they can be useful for each other. Web advertisement is not bad; it is just fulfilling its destination and is doing it in a great, productive way. These relations indeed need a negotiation and explanation. The best thing for people is to stop dramatizing the web advertisement situation and see what they get for being patient. Advertisement is a “porto mobile” of business and economy. If it is taken away it will simply kill millions of companies out there. If we possess this “Porto mobile” we have to know how to use it to get the right results. This is the main thing contemporary people have to learn in order to stay “contemporary”. Admit it, web advertisement is definitely not a bad thing after all! Just fight for your rights!

Bibliography:

1. “Advertising and the World Wide Web (Advertising and Consumer Psychology Series)” by Esther Thorson David W. Schumann/Lea/2000.

2. “Web Advertising and Marketing: Joshua O. Testerman“ by Paul J Dowling, Brent F. Taylor, Brent Taylor, Paul J. Dowling/ Premier Press/2000.

3. “www.Advertising: Advertising and Marketing on the World Wide Web” by Richard Adams /Watson-Guptill Publicat/2003.

4. “Web Advertising and Marketing” by Thomas J. Kuegler Jr. and Thomas J. Kuegler/Premier Press/2000.

5. “Web Advertising: New Forms Of Communication On The Internet”by Anja Janoschka/John Benjamin’s/2002.