The Prize For The Sneakiest Ad Goes to…

Ever seen a sneaky ad on a game? Of course you have. You play supposedly free games, funded by adverts. Well, I am thinking of starting a competition for the sneakiest advertising.

They have become so incredibility devious. You want to play the game, but first, an ad comes on and you get the option to cut it off. But and it’s a big but. They make the way to cut it off harder and harder to see and easier and easier to get wrong. I’m right aren’t I? They are more slippery than a bar of soap.

Here are some of their tactics:

1/ The scrolling timer at the bottom. You would assume that a timer means you have to wait till the time is up till you can press any button and exit the ad… wrong! You can exit at any point after the exit button appears. But see point 2, they don’t make it easy.

2/ The almost invisible exit button. If you have poor eyesight you will struggle to see it. In ‘days of yore’ the exit button for anything was a x, not for these ads. They can be anything, their favourite is >> because that looks like it means, ‘I want to continue please.’ You won’t want to press that, will you? But you don’t have much choice, the other options take you straight to ordering the app that was advertised. So you press it, and go straight to a page that gives you an option to buy the game. Hang on though, top of that page gradually an x or >> appears. Not too quickly, they want you to order the game from the ad. But when that x or >> appears that really will exit the ad this time. Trouble is that they are starting to put them as white on a white background, have they heard of invisibility, or poor eyesight?

I imagine the advertising execs who think these things up. They have a new idea to catch us innocent punters out. So they run into their boss’s office. The boss is sitting in her large marble floored office, the windows are floor to ceiling and look out on Central Park, New York. She looks from behind her expansive desk at her head exec as he enters, and asks, ‘what is it?’

‘I have it, the best idea yet. Those poor fools will have to click on our links now. There will be no escape.’ Sinister laughter.

The boss temples her fingers and smiles at her exec, ‘go on, you’ve always done well so far.’

‘This is fool proof, the exit button will keep moving when your finger moves towards it.’ He smiles in a way that reminds you of a crocodile.

His boss sits up straight and beams at him, ‘Brilliant! But wait, what about Gen Z, they’re very fast?’

‘I’ve thought of that. If someone actually presses the button, it just takes them to a new selection window. The choices are: 1/ do you want buy the deluxe game 2/ do you want to buy the super deluxe?’

‘You mean there is no option if they don’t want the game?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I love the way your devious little mind works. Get to it now.’ The boss imagines dollar signs in her head.

Am I getting carried away? Of course not, it’s the obvious next step. I just hope the ad execs aren’t reading this. I don’t want to give them ideas.

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