story
The reason they predict their revenue will go up (which it will, at least in the short term until the market adjusts) is because they have a lot of customers already lined up to pay them to show ads on their TVs.
Those customers' marketing departments decided to pay money to include their ads on TVs because a similar process was followed and they (rightfully) predict that they will get "engagement" on those ads (which the marketing department will rely on to justify or increase their salaries).
The problem is that this "engagement" will mostly be just annoyed customers mis-clicking or trying whatever it takes to dismiss the ad and not actually intending to purchase the advertised product, thus not contributing to the company's end goal of selling more product.
I am not convinced that the majority of the advertising & marketing initiatives out there actually translate to more profit. Marketing departments will brag about "conversions" all day long but how many of those are either accidental clicks or people who were already determined to purchase your product anyway (looking at the companies who buy Google AdWords on their own brand - if someone's searching for your brand on Google your website will already be the top result - a click on the ad is not a true "conversion" in this case and is just wasted money).
Ultimately, people have a finite amount of time and disposable money, and throwing more ads at this "problem" won't solve it. Your conversions will go up because of accidental clicks (and your marketing department will capitalize on that to justify their salaries/raises), but that doesn't magically give the consumer more money to actually go and buy your product so your profits will not increase.
"Amazing! The smaller we make the 'X' button, the more people love them!"
TuneIn does this.
(partially kidding, but only partially.)
I always, always thought this is what X buttons do, so I was simply closing the tab :))
- same color background
- in the wrong corner (users expect the "X" in the upper right hand corner). I've seen the "X" in the wrong corner and some other icon in the right hand corner. People reflexive will click in the upper right hand corner and open the ad by mistake
- I've seen where you have to click on text instead of the "X", clicking on the "X" just opens the ad
- Also very small, 1-2 pixel "X" so literally one pixel off and you've opened the ad
- I don't remember what company did this, but they would pop the ad and after three seconds, it would reload, all but a few pixels higher so when you're in the process of closing the window, it would reload and then you'd open the ad by mistake because the "X" is in the wrong place now.
I've seen a lot more devious stuff but the sad thing is, I have decent vision. How do these dark patterns affect people who have impaired vision or other issues with their vision? How infuriating it is it for them to deal with this BS? I can't imagine.
The app asks once per month if I would consider seeing an ad to support the developer. I usually watch one ad a day, as a rule, because it's the best way to do this. I've clicked on those ads, and have actually made purchases from those ads (it was for a product I was already researching and probably going to buy, but I clicked through the ad when I finally purchased it).
More apps need that level of respect for their users' time.
Fact check. You cannot make an X with anything less than 3 pixels. ;)
Of course now I'm part of the problem, because some asshole has a graph that shows that (a suspiciously small fraction of) users are able to opt-out so there's no legal liability for having the ads that way.
I think anyone with some experience in that type of software would intuitively understand the negative user experience described here.
Seems like a pretty straightforward case of the classic "Unless their salary depends on not understanding" rather than some opaque wall of unknowable unpredictable consequences.
Sounds like yet another case of, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Except that Google lets anyone else advertise in that slot above your brand. And as we've seen some companies can confuse the customers and steal them away in such an ad.
If we tacitly accept a search engine allowing such phishing expeditions in those ads, then this kind of spending is the necessary and only step companies can take.
I’m actually considering whether it would be a good thing if the app stores would verify government applications and perhaps not even allow ads on queries which have results that include governmental apps...
"Hey, have you seen the new COVID-19 contact tracing app? It's named TikTok-19".
Could be a true conversion given that all competitors are paying adwords on your brand name search also. If you don't have them you will probably appear after a long list of competitors with really personalized clickbait titles prompting your customers to compare you with them
Google has devolved into a shitty search engine even ignoring the advertising. Someone please build a search engine comparable to google in the mid-2000s. No duckduckgo isn't it.
Pro tip: if the competitor uses your trademark in their ad copy, you can do a takedown notice and usually the ads will be removed.
The dominance of this kind of surveillance capitalist or ad-saturated model everywhere is a side effect of extreme wealth inequality and a generally demand constrained economy.
There are a few good reasons to do this:
1. Competitors will bid on your brand name. Your ad for your own brand name will have a higher quality score and be very cheap, driving up the price for the competitors.
2. So much of a SERP is below the fold that there is value to being as close to the top of the page as possible.
The difference from Samsung is that the ads on the LGs are in the same place they've always been (on the smart tv menu overlay), they've never been obtrusive, and they're always in some way connected to video content (usually VOD movies that you can purchase through one of the streaming apps, or adds for streaming apps you can install on the TV).
I took that stupid TV off the network as soon as I could.
I think the manufacturers are all as bad as each other. My current Panasonic TV will refuse to load any of the "smart" apps (even Netflix) if it cannot reach Panasonic's servers, which means the entire TV becomes useless as an Internet device (no Netflix or ANY streaming services) if Panasonic has a server issue (which they sometimes do).
Might revert to VHS at this rate.
Instead I will recommend Sony or LG now
I have a Philips smart TV, so far it has no ads and just mildly annoying bugs, nothing really disruptive. But mine is an old model, it looks like the new ones aren't like that anymore.
A few years ago I brought some TVs to use as monitors because they were much better fit than the actual thing. Now it looks like the trends reversed, and I'll have to start buying monitors to use as TVs. Is there a good TV receptor that I can plug in a Raspberry Pi?
The kinds of "feature" we are talking about with the Samsung TV here and other so-called smart devices will stop me from buying those products in the first place. But then I also don't use Windows 10 for my main PC because I think I should control my PC and not whoever happened to write the OS I'm running, so apparently I'm an outlier.
- Brand awareness is one thing, but it feels companies are more interested in saturating consumers with advertising. That saturation is something entirely different.
- Advertising can present information to base purchasing decisions upon, but rarely does in most media. While advertising should never be the sole source of that information, it would be far more effective for brand or product awareness.
We all know this, but we ignore it. Branding for brandings sake == lying to customers.
Heck the yoga app I use I saw through a mobile ad. Same deal for the fitness app I use (BodBot, awesome app, check it out!)
I've gotten onboard Kickstarters from ads, and I've bought keto cereal from an ad I saw.
99.999% of most ads I ignore, but sometimes ads are really well targeted and actually show me something I want.
(None of these ads were on a tv in any way...)
This sounds like customers will eventually choose less shady brands in a year or two, when in reality all brands will actual race to the bottom together.
The big companies have people who check if the ads are working. Every have the clerk ask for your zip code? That is because they are checking if the ad sent to some zip codes worked. It is noisy data, but statistics is all about finding signal in noisy data.
https://www.adexchanger.com/ad-exchange-news/the-marketers-g...
That’s odd. You’ve never read a valley S-1, I take it?
