intrusive advertising has become more invasive over the years

Advertising isn’t something new, like, at all. It predates even the 20th century and, of course, the 21st. Adverts have long been the main way businesses bring awareness of themselves and their products to the general public.

When the radio came about and became widely popular, radio advertising was born. Placing an advert for your business, product, or services has become the norm. It reached far more people than traditional posters, banners, and print advertising within newspapers, as it required far less attention. For example, the general public didn’t have to pick up a newspaper, flip through the pages, and then see your advert— all that was needed was a pair of ears to receive the news of your advert.

However, a lot has changed since then. The television was invented and became a fixture in the vast majority of households worldwide. With that, TV advertising was born, and later even dedicated channels like teleshopping emerged, with the sole purpose of advertising products that consumers could easily purchase—usually by calling, SMS, or postal order. At the time, this was considered a major advancement in advertising. Advertising became even more invasive, sprinkled between movies and episodes of shows you were watching. Since you could not rewind or fast-forward cable television, most people were forced to watch and involuntarily absorb the information the adverts presented.

Present day, adverts have become so intrusive that there is almost no way to avoid them. They are plastered as banner ads, video ads, pop-up ads, and much more. Ads now appear in the majority of apps we use, as well as within streaming services and websites, making it nearly impossible to escape their presence in our daily digital lives. I am going to go through some of the most common types of adverts. A lot of inspiration was taken from YouTube content creator ‘Fletcho’ and his video titled “I Played The Top 100 Mobile Games and Counted Every Ad,” which can be found here.

Banner Adverts

Various examples of banner adverts [Source]

A classic, a banner advert can easily be placed usually around the edges of the website, especially within article websites (such as this one, you're welcome, there are none here). Tends to be seen especially above, before the main point of focus especially.

Pop-up adverts

A pop-up advert, video format.

Once again, extremely common, previously in browsers, redirecting you to a new tab but more recently has been seen overwhelmingly in mobile apps (tends to be after finishing a level of a game, or clicking certain buttons and such.)

Audio exclusive adverts

An audio advert (highlighted in red)

Definitely a less common approach from what I had personally observed, this type of advert has little to none visual element however will present itself in audio form, guessing the aim of this is to confuse/discourage the user from clicking it off as it's not exactly clear where the ad source is therefore closing it off is more difficult if possible at all depending on the app/website.

'Wandering' advert

A wandering advert on a web page (highlighted in blue) [Source]

I have decided to call this a 'wandering' advert due to the fact it finds its way into random places on a website or app, it is not it a dedicated space but will sometimes travel around the websites layout.

Invasive pop-up advert

These adverts, compared to the traditional, good old pop-ups are way harder to get rid of as any button you will click will without fail redirect you to a website, or often the app store. These adverts can be closed however it requires 2-3 tries, if not more. These are a rather shady practice but have become a norm unfortunately, after all, if your advert is invasive, there's more chance it will be seen, wether it will be received well? I suppose some people do not care as long as the money is there.

Billboard adverts

A billbard advert can be observed highlighted in red, the meaning is quite literal.

While not a physical and real billboard, the billboard ad has the exact same function as the real thing, more common within mobile games, especially those allowing you to roam, it's quite harmless and probably one of the best I have seen as it does not interupt the user experience and it does not invade anything, it's simply there for you to see and walk on past, just like a billboard.

The 'welcome back' advert

This is called the 'welcome back' advert as it is what it does, it literally welcomes you back. If at any point you decided to leave the app and resume later on, without fail the second the application is open again, it will trigger a (usually) pop-up advert which similarly to a pop-up video advert can either be skipped after 5/10 seconds or if unlucky having to bear thru the next 30 seconds of invasive advertising, somewhat similar to television advertising I suppose.

Conclusion

Advertisers have stepped up their game, some in more shadier ways than the others and it seems like there is a trend forming of invasive and unconvenient advertising (for the user, of course).

I am sure that it won't stop here and I am rather curious to see what new forms of advertising get born as we advance further and further with technology.

Once again, a lot of credit goes to Fletcho and his YouTube video on the topic which gave me a lot of insight and made me aware of some forms of advertising I had no idea of before.