I won’t validate the ads by pointing them out, but we can all think of a number of annoying commercials. I suppose the marketeers who generated these wretched pieces truly believe that “no press is bad press.” Don’t focus groups give feedback? I can’t imagine anyone seeing such choice pieces of advertising and saying, “YEAH! I want to buy X now!”

More and more ads are moving online, but no one knows what works in online advertising. I block obnoxious ads online, but allow non-obtrusive, possibly even helpful, ads. Last night Mike and I discussed when we click on Google ads–and it’s not when Google would like us to (i.e. all the time). I have to wonder if I’m the standard user or a corner case. What brave new world awaits us with advertising?

By the way, I avoid most ads by using Firefox with Adblock Plus. If you’re not already using these two, I’d highly recommend it. (More to come later on this subject.) Opera 10 has built in ad-blocking although I don’t find it works as well. To augment the service you can use Admuncher (I don’t link because they charge a lot) or any other technique described on wikipedia.