Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Those uninvited guests

    My teenage nephew has been freaking out on his iPad. He is surfing all over the place looking for fun, movie info, twitter, sports and now he has just landed on youtube. As he watches video after video, I saw him tapping a button or two on the screen hard often with a weird expression on his face when doing so.

    I was getting curious. I moved behind him to see what he was doing. As the video started, he was waiting for about 3 seconds after which he would strike the close button as hard as he could, with that same almost angry expression, closing the Ad that had just started to play before the real video.

   I continued to watch him surf and found the same behavior. He moved into a media site to check out the contestants of his favorite game and a big pop-up came up staring at his face. He hit the X button hard again, with a frustrated look at how much time and effort it takes to block that Ad.

   I asked him if he could remember any Ad he had seen in those 3 seconds before he closed it and he replied - "Remember what I just closed ? Are you kidding me ?" and went back to his business completely ignoring me, like he had ignored those uninvited guests called Digital Ads on his tablet screen.

   Over the next few days, I was asking guys around to name one Digital Ad brand or product they had seen on they tablet or laptop. Not a single guy was able to recollect.

   Those uninvited guests are not forgotten. They have never got registered in the first place. And those Digital Ads have been a billion dollar business for quite some time. Huh!

   

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