Video ads with sound?

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#1

The last couple of days I have been getting the same video ad that automatically starts playing with really loud music. While I understand that the SDMB needs to make money, I was really hoping that such desperate measures were unnecessary.

If something just starts attacking my ears without my clicking on it, that’s a really good way of ensuring I actively avoid that product/service in the future - it can really startle you if you don’t expect it, and if you’re listening to music while surfing the dope, it’s just not cool.

So please, Powers that Be, do we really have to have that sort of ads on the Dope?

(BTW, I’m from Germany and the ad was in German, so I don’t know if the problem is localised.)

#2

Yeah the video ads are really fucking obnoxious. Not because I browse with sound though, but because they steal cursor focus. I can’t just hit page down when I click on a thread. I have to click on the text to get my cursor’s focus back.

Unfortunately I cannot use firefox and adblock on my work computer, so there is no workaround.

#3

Just had one, I think. Really obnoxious. Crashed my browser when it was done to boot.

thanks.

#4

Can we get more info? I’ll refer this up to Ed but he’s going to need more to discuss with the ad guys.

#5

This is going to get complicated. As many have now noticed, many of the ads you see on the Web (not just here) are localized to you, based mainly on your IP number. It’s safe to say hardly anybody in the U.S. is going to see an ad in German. What’s more, there are hundreds of ad networks around the world feeding thousands of ads into the handful of providers we use. So presumably what you’re seeing is an ad from a German company dealing with a German ad network, which tossed said ad into the gigantic international ad-targeting machinery (seriously, the technology that goes into this is astonishing), which then showed the ad only to people in Germany. So this could be tough to track down. We’ve set up our global preferences with all our providers so we don’t get ads with involuntary sound. If one slips through, I can try to chase it down and get it fixed, but I need to know what ad we’re talking about. A screen shot is strongly preferred (Alt-Print Screen, Ctrl-V into Paint, save as JPEG); if that’s not possible, then the name of the advertiser and a description of the ad. One caveat: the Web ad industry apparently has now defined voluntary action (meaning you agreed to listen to a noisy ad) as you possibly inadvertently dragging your cursor over the ad. So be careful you don’t do that.

#6

For me it sounded like a radio ad. Well produced, but by the time I was able to scroll up to see if there was a corresponding visual ad the browser crashed.

#7

OK, caught one. It was for state farm. I couldn’t do a capture but the link went to State Farm’s facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/StateFarmNation

#8

Thanks, I’ve inquired with our provider.

#9

Gee, what a great attitude. Welp, your hands are totally tied, I see, so the advertisers get what they want and what is ridiculously annoying to your users. I can’t think of anything you could possibly do about it.

This is a fabulous way to motivate people who haven’t to try out those ad blockers and drive your revenue towards zero, by the way.

#10

Here’s ascreen captureof First5California.com. They have a couple of different ads, they start when the window opens and they always crash my browser.

#11

Technically I think the intention is to get people to pay for an ad-free experience. I always see lots of people threatening to leave the site over obnoxious ads, but very few will follow through. Ad-blocking seems the reasonable middle ground between threats and paid accounts.

#12

I just came here to say I had this same problem start just now. Something about “You’d do anything to save the life of a loved one…”

#13

First, thank you for this answer, I didn’t expect TPTB to actually respond in such length - I’m pleasantly surprised.
I didn’t find the ad for a couple of days over Christmas, but I just ran across it again: it was an ad for the German browser game “Travianer” (www.travianer.de), and I most certainly did not mouse over any of the ad’s area.
I’m not going to say what I think about this practice, because this ain’t the pit, but I hope this remains an isolated company in this regard.
Happy Christmas!

#14

OK, our ad provider blocked State Farms ads from our site until they figure out which specific one had sound. I’ll also ask them to do something about First5California.com and Travianer.

#15

I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but there’s a thread about it already so…

I twice saw/heard an ad for Lysol that had sound that I could not figure how to turn off. It was an “interactive ad” that reacted when I moused over it and featured no visible way to shut it up. Additionally was I unable to change the volume of the output through the right click settings dialog in the ad. I’m fairly sure it started before I ever moused over it, and if it happens again I’ll remember to get some details.

#16

Just now, ad for MTV something. I wouldn’t know really as I got right out. And am inclined to stay out.

ETA: These happen when viewing a page at this site, and NO OTHER SITES, even though I visit a lot of sites with ads (like, most of them). It GOES AWAY when I navigate away from the SDMB page. Interesting.

#17

The Lysol ads have been popping up for me, too. I don’t mind an ad with sound so much so long as there’s a way to stop or mute it but, as glowacks said, this one doesn’t seem to have a way to do that.

#18

I can also attest to the Lysol ad. It started making noise on me while using IE. I couldn’t turn it off, so I stopped reading the thread.

#19

I’ve been seeing a Mucinex one, too, but haven’t in a few days.

#20

The Lysol one is popping up in almost every thread for me now. I’m using Google Chrome, if that matters.