Stop It With the Big Ads

A few months ago I noticed a distressing phenomenon on both IMDB and TV Guide. Both sites began featuring gigantic ads at the top of their pages. What is more, particularly in the case of TV Guide, these huge ads caused more problems than simply forcing the reader to scroll down to get the credits or listings.

Indeed, on TV Guide there are times the ads will actually cover the search bar. As a result, I have to reload the page. This isn't a problem on IMDB, but the ads do make both sites slower to load and sometimes even affect the performance of whatever browser I am using at the time. 

Now I suspect the reason for these gigantic ads is that they think they will draw the reader's attention more than an old-fashioned, modest banner ad would, but I do not think that is the case. Usually I am so irritated by the sheer size of these ads that I don't even notice what is being advertised. I might well notice whatever product is being advertised if they had used a simple banner ad.

Anyway, I am hoping this is something that other sites won't adopt and that TV Guide and IMDB will soon do away with them. The goal of advertising is to convince users to buy a product or use a service. That isn't accomplished if the ads irritate them to no end.