10 March 2004
Prophis Research surveyed Canadians last month and found that telemarketing is considered the most annoying form of advertising, followed by online pop-up ads and spam.
Each form of marketing received a rating over 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 indicating �extremely� annoying or intrusive. All other forms of online advertising claimed scores over 3, except for legitimate e-mail marketing, which garnered a score of exactly 2.8.
Most US consumers agree with their Canadian counterparts that pop-up advertising is annoying. According to a survey from Valentine Radford, 74% of US consumers consider pop-ups annoying. However, it seems TV commercials are more annoying to people in the US as 6% say they find TV ads irksome.
In fact, Roy Morgan found in November 2003 that 7.5% of advertisers in Australia that are not advertising online say they don�t because online advertising is annoying.
If so many people around the world think online advertising is annoying, why has the vehicle become such an important part of an integrated marketing plan? Perhaps it is because actual results speak louder than consumer sentiment studies? There is also a lot to be said for relevant content, no matter what the medium.
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