Advertising overload

Advertising overload refers to the practice of not only integrating advertising as a source of revenue in software and websites, but also increasing the number of ads within platforms that consumers use. This has increasingly caused inconvenience to consumers. A commonly cited issue is the ever-increasing length of unskippable ads, which are forcibly shown even to people who need to watch CPR videos.^[1]

Operating systems have been experiencing advertising overload, most notably the large market lead Windows. King's Candy Crush frequently comes pre-installed on Windows 10 operating systems, without consumer consent.^[2] Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a mainstay title for Windows devices, has had unnecessary ads inserted into the software.^[3][4] Users who purchased Windows 10+ licenses have reported a progressively increasing number of ads within the software.^[5][6][7] Windows 10 additionally has pop-ups that frequently prompt legacy users to purchase Windows 11-supported hardware.^[8] While it is possible to disable this pop-up via registry editing in Win 10 Pro edition,^[9] the registries that are changed with this method are the ones which handle receiving any update, including security updates.

Smart televisions also have been seeing a sharp increase in advertisements within the operating system as well, such as Roku^[10] and Amazon Fire TV.^[11] Roku has faced criticism for its plans to introduce ads that appear whenever users pause a game they are playing.^[12] This introduces privacy concerns since these detection systems depend on constant spying on consumer's activities.

Users of Xbox One/Series^[13][14] and PlayStation 4/5 consoles,^[15][16][17] have been receiving ads on the home screens of their systems for over a decade.^[18] This practice dates back to the 7th console generation, such as on the Xbox 360.^{[19][citation needed - Low-quality source]}

In the late 2010s, there was a polarizing shift within the streaming service industry. New streaming services like IMDB TV and Roku Television came onto the scene offering free streaming, with the caveat of ads.^[20] This inspired corporations who operated premium streaming services to do the same. In the early 2020s, paying users were forced to watch ads.^[21] Since then, users have only been reporting an increase in the amounts of ads^[22] that they watch on their services.^[23] These premium providers, such as Netflix,^[21] do offer versions of their services that are ad free at a higher cost. Consumers have labeled this practice as a form of extortion.^[24] Plex is one of the few services which only offer a paid, ad-supported version of its platform.

These ad-free tiers additionally are increasing in price,^[24] so it often forces consumers who are disinterested in alternative means to either pay an excessive amount of money to watch their favorite media, or be barraged by increasing ads.^[22][23]

While not on par with its Mobile gaming counterpart, traditional video games have also been experiencing this heavy increase in advertising. This has especially been seen and documented from titles such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. The home screen and launch screen experience for these games often aim to direct players toward the storefront, encouraging them to purchase the products that are being promoted that day.^[25][26] Additionally, killcams in Call of Duty have seen ads as well.^[27]

Activision Blizzard has a dedicated advertising division for companies to advertise their products inside their games.^[28] Epic Games has done a similar thing.^[29][30][31] It is expected that legitimate ads may be progressively more pervasive within the media that users pay for.^[32][33] Advertising agencies in general are also trying to integrate billboard ads for legitimate products inside games, such as Trackmania.^[34]

Some platforms have gone so far as to send users notifications explicitly promoting these new products available for purchase within the game.^[35] Most have kept these notifications in-game,^[36] but some have been reported to leave notification pop-ups directly on users' devices.^[37][38] It is entirely plausible that these marketplace advertisements will increase in popularity from publishers as time goes on.

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  Cod MW3 - Ad in-game marketing the premium version.
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  Fortnite - Ad marketing T-Mobile.

Main article: Advergames

While not as popular as it once was, companies would pay developers to work on games that exist solely to advertise a product, such as McDonald's McWorld, which also advertised other products inside the game.^[39] Sometimes these games would also introduce additional anticonsumer practices, often to the detriment of young kids.^[40] Many of these games were made as shovelware as well, so many of these games are often not meant for an extended period of time to be accessible. Older advergames often only sold for a short period, only up to a few years at best, so if a game held any quality, there is a problem of FOMO, this has been seen with popular titles such as Pepsiman on the PS1 or Cool Spot on the Sega Genesis. In the 2000s, these games often preferred accessing servers, mostly to encourage serving additional ads. Many of these would not last long, and these products people invest into are just taken away from them, such as ToonTown^[41] or Club Penguin.^[42]

In the modern day, Advergaming has largely preferred existing metaverses, such as Roblox^[43][44] or the literal Metaverse.^[45] These too, have brought controversy^[46] and can be seen as anti-consumer.

A feature often associated with modern day mobile games are ads, especially misleading ads.^[47][48] Unfortunately, publishers such as Puzzle1Studio, Metacore Games, and Rovio have a history of publishing titles that corner the consumer into frequently watching ads in the middle of their games.^[49] This practice additionally leeches into Microtransactions, wherein these app developers will intentionally try to coax users into watching ads for increased rewards, or to reduce cooldown times.^[49][50]

Major software distribution platforms, such as the Google Play store or the iOS App Store, often allow this behavior^[50] to persist from app developers, even featuring these ad-heavy games.

Social media has become a fundamental part of the advertising world, thanks to the ease with which targeted audiences can be reached based on their interests. There are various types of advertising that users encounter when using all major social media platforms.

Native ads are designed to blend seamlessly into the rest of the feed, mimicking its appearance. They are generally more engaging and lead to stronger brand identification among consumers.^[51] Native ads are distinguishable from organic content by the label “sponsored,” often written in very small text. As highlighted by Dr. Bartosz W. Wojdynski’s research,^[52] native ads can easily be misleading. In fact, 68% of participants in his study failed to distinguish them from organic content. Therefore, it is crucial that these ads do not come across as deceptive. The FTC follows these three principles:^[53]

1. Transparency is key: An advertisement or promotional message should not suggest or imply to consumers that it is anything other than an ad.
2. Clarity of commercial intent: Some native ads may be so clearly commercial in nature that they are unlikely to mislead consumers even without a specific disclosure. In other cases, a disclosure may be necessary to ensure consumers understand the content is advertising.
3. Clear and prominent disclosures: If a disclosure is necessary to prevent deception, it must be clear and prominent.

Video ads are among the most common forms of advertising on social media. They can appear either as standalone content or be inserted at the beginning, end, or middle of another video. Shorter, skippable, and non-intrusively placed ads perform better, as they respect user autonomy. Targeted ads are more likely to capture interest. As with other ad formats, transparency is crucial here as well, ensuring that the ad is not perceived as intrusive.^[54]

Ads that appear in Stories are full-screen, vertical, and often feature interactive elements like swipe-up links, polls, or countdowns. They expire after 24 hours, giving them an ephemeral nature. Story ads are better perceived when they are creative, non-intrusive, and relevant to users' interests.^[55]

Influencer marketing is a type of advertising in which brands team up with social media personalities, also known as influencers, to promote a product or service.

Most of these influencers have built a credible standing among a large and engaged following. Brands use brand deals to leverage the influencers' credibility and relatibility and reach audiences in ways that feel far more authentic than traditional advertising.

Users are more influenced by social media personalities who share their values and lifestyles. Consequently, authenticity, trustworthiness, and relevance are the key drivers of consumer behavior. Thus, when influencers share real-life experiences of using a product or service, their recommendations are more likely to resonate with followers and result in higher levels of engagement and purchase intent.^[56]

Congruence—the match between the persona of the influencer, the product they are promoting, and the interests of the audience—is crucial. When the fit among these elements is strong it makes the campaign appear more genuine, and therefore more credible. Strong congruence will improve the credibility of an influencer, and create a stronger emotional relationship with the audience.^[57]

Over-commercialization—when influencers promote too many products or aren't transparent—can erode their audience's trust. Clear disclosures, such as #ad or #sponsored, help to maintain transparency and adherence with advertising regulations. Unfortunately, such disclosures are often hidden among numerous hashtags or omitted altogether.^[56][57]

Main article: Advertising overload in websites

Ever since the introduction of cookies in the early 1990s, websites have been trying to make progressively more money off of advertisers. This pattern used to be easily thwarted, as in the early days of the web, consumers could simply choose not to visit these websites to avoid being so pervasively served advertisements. Unfortunately, in modern times, consumers lack this capability, as mass advertising has now become a systemic problem. Popular news sources, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others, are filled to the brim with advertisements. As mentioned by publications such as The Huffington Post,^[58] The Conversation,^[59] and B2,^[60] the web itself has too many ads.

Banner ads are the most common form of web ads and one of the oldest forms of digital advertising, usually appearing as rectangular graphics at the top, bottom, or sides of a webpage. However, despite their pervasiveness, their effectiveness has been questioned due to phenomena such as banner blindness, where users unconsciously ignore ad-like content. Banner ads work only if they are rightly placed, well designed, and relevant.^[61]

This research^[61] featured the use of eye-tracking technology to analyze how users behave with banner ads. It was found that such ads placed in central or prominent positions on a webpage receive significantly more attention than those in peripheral areas. Moreover, the animated and interactive banners are better at capturing attention than static ones; however, too much may become distracting and otherwise counterproductive. This also underlines that the relevance of the ad to the user's interests is one of the critical drivers of engagement. If banner ads are contextual, relating either to the content of the webpage or the browsing behavior of the user, they are more likely to be noticed and clicked. Advertisers should focus on creating non-intrusive, contextually relevant advertisements that add value to the user experience—not disrupt it.

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YouTube serves six different categories of advertisement:

• Skippable In-stream Ads
  • These have no maximum length, though they are skippable after playing for five seconds.
  • They can play before, during, or after other videos, or as a full screen interstitial ad in the mobile app.
  • They can also appear on YouTube TV.^[62]
• Non-skippable In-stream Ads
  • These are up to 60 seconds long, and can't be skipped.
  • They can appear before, during, and after other videos, and on YouTube TV.^[62]
• In-feed Video Ads
  • These consist of a thumbnail and some text, appearing alongside real videos.
  • They can appear amongst the search results, on the YouTube mobile homepage, and alongside related videos.
• Bumper Ads
  • Bumper Ads are a category of non-skippable ads that are at most 6 seconds long.
• Masthead Ads
  • These ads have no maximum length, though on desktop platforms only the first 30 seconds play.
  • This ad consists of a video that autoplays at the top of the YouTube home feed. After the video is finished (or after 30 seconds on desktop) the ad displays a thumbnail.
• YouTube Shorts Ads
  • These ads are intended to blend in with normal Shorts videos. As with normal Shorts, users can skip the ad by swiping up or down, and the ad will be kept and reshown if the user scrolls back.
  • YouTube does not list a hard time limit, but they recommend a maximum of 60 seconds. ^[63]

Recent controversy has brought up cases in which YouTube Premium subscribers still see advertisements—contrary to the service's own highlighting of offering an ad-free experience. Users have reported both pre-roll ads and mid-roll ads, along with promotional content in the Home feed.^[64] In one prominent case, a user in Germany received an email from support at YouTube which said, in essence: "Sometimes promotional ads may appear for specific partnerships or limited-time offers," thereby hinting at the possibility of factors like location, viewing history, or special marketing efforts that could influence the event.

In response to these reports, a YouTube spokesperson confirmed that Premium members should not see either pre-roll or mid-roll ads. They further stated that if subscribers do, they should reach out to support immediately. YouTube also said that Premium members may have access to different rewards with trusted partners, which they outline on their benefits page, but those shouldn't show up as ads within the video itself.^[65] A fix for this is also shown in this guide.

• Stellantis in car advertisements
• Samsung ads in refrigerators
• Ad block