Bigger doesn’t always mean better

As a sports enthusiast, one of my morning rituals is to go to ESPN.com to check the scores from last night’s games, view the top highlights, look for breaking news, etc. Just the other day I went about my normal routine, but when I hit the ESPN.com homepage I was smacked in the face with an iPod Touch ad that made me feel like I was on a rollercoaster ride. Before I knew what was going on the ad had destroyed the top navigation. The ad uses Flash to actually manipulate the page. In the screenshot below, you can see how it bounces the navigation tabs around as the iPod Touch moves while playing a typical game.

According to a Marketplace article, the Online Publishers Association will continue to create bigger ads in the future. I can admit that this is a cool way to display an ad, but from a user’s perspective, this was just frustrating. I found myself yelling at my computer because it was prohibiting me from doing what I was trying to do on the website.

What do you think? Is this a creative way to display an ad or just a big irritation to the users’ experience? How will users react to bigger ads on websites?

Tags: banner advertising, display advertising, ESPN.com, iPod Touch ad, onlien marketing

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 5:53 am and is filed under Branding & Advertising, Creative, Digital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.