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E-Marketing   URGENT - Need Help Fast!  
 
This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
Do People Like Vokens?
Posted By: E-Marketing* on 6/20/2005 1:29 PM (CST) 250 Points
I'm not talking about anything from Star Trek here...

A Voken is an "Interactive virtual token". They are online clickable ads appear to float-over the content of a site. They can be closed, and sometimes they simply vanish after showing up for a while. Vokens can move around the page, can overlap existing elements, or be placed in any static location. Clicking on a voken delivers new content in the form of a new browser window or interstitial.

I'm trying to find research about:
1) The click-through rates on these versus other online ad formats,
2) The recall rates on these versus other online ad formats, and
3) The customer annoyance rate on these versus other online ads.

Ultimately, I need to know if the value of these ads outweighs the annoyance factor. Any advice or direction you can provide would be much appreciated.

Posted by: CaseyAllen* Accepted Answer
6/20/2005 2:21 PM (CST)
They win points with me for "something different" which makes them a little more tolerable to me as a marketer. We'll see in a year. The exception is if the "X" is in a unique spot or otherwise tough to find. This is the "good marketer vs. bad marketer" discriminator.

For the 99.2% of people out there that DO NOT think like a marketer, however, I can imagine this is an intrusion magnified a few more times than banner.
 
Posted by: Pepper Blue Accepted Answer
6/20/2005 6:32 PM (CST)
Very annoying and yet sometimes very amusing.

High recall rate, at least for me.

Like CaseyAllen mentions, it is like video game with a short time limit as you franctically try to find the X and click it.

Maybe this is part of the plan.

As a marketer I also have a high tolerance rate for these
types of things, going back to see if it will reload again etc. which I am sure is atypical of most people who stumble upon them.
 
Posted by: cblase Accepted Answer
6/20/2005 6:45 PM (CST)
I hate them. They usually block what I'm trying to look at and it's hellish trying to find the little 'x' to make them go away.

And I can't recall the contents for a single one of them.

I doubt if any of these responses are helping you with your market research. I think the technology is too new to have had its efficacy tested.

Love the word, though. As a writer I always appreciate adding to my vocabulary. Thanks for sharing it.
 
Posted by: francisliew Accepted Answer
6/20/2005 8:50 PM (CST)
I dont like them, any site that have them I never read them, let alone buy whatever they are selling.

Reason it disturbes me eyes, I like it just plain and simple.
 
Posted by: mbarber Accepted Answer
6/20/2005 9:48 PM (CST)
Gidday David - to paraphrase from a flower comment: a voken is a pop up by any other name

Personally I like them because they are unusual whilst hating them because they tend to operate even more intrusively than standard pop up which can be closed with relative ease.

For that reason the only thing I tend to look for with a pop-up or a voken is the 'close' button so I can get on with doing what I was doing before being intruded upon.
 
Posted by: Puru Gupta Accepted Answer
6/21/2005 4:33 AM (CST)
David,
Few positives ... and equally few negatives:

Positives

- the Curiosity Factor entails an increase in the click-through rate, provided they are positioned next to the content (header or sidebar).

- They do have a higher recall value, as compared to normal Banners, since they are more interactive, and exhibit mobility, in terms of the look-n-feel of the Ads

- The "Communication" becomes the 2nd step. The first step is "Interest generation", which is the customer's side - you dont display offerings right away. This works in your favor.

Negatives

- if the "vokens" are positioned OVER the content, the click rates might be misleading, since most of the clicks might be made by mistake!

- The time factor can work against you also. The repeatable instances might turn out to be annoying for the visitor, since he would have either rejected the offer, or explored it already. The transaction is already complete, and the Vokens are no more pertinent to him...UNLESS there is more to offer! What I am trying to allude to is that simple moving pieces can become annoying

- Unfortunately, "Curiosity Factor" gets you the customer. You cant sustain the click rates, just based on the curiosity factor. When the customer comes back to the same site, this is when it is translated into "Annoyance Rate". Solution? Keep the timeline short, and position it well. You could also make the Ads movable, or as Marcus said, keep the "Close" button handy!

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Puru

And yes, as cblase said, thanks for increasing the vocabulary :)
 
Posted by: telemoxie Accepted Answer
6/21/2005 5:55 AM (CST)
My initial reaction when things start showing up on my computer and floating around the page is, "oh, no, I have a virus". Certainly these grab your attention, and I would have to say I've probably clicked on more of these than on banner ads. I'll bet the click rates would be even higher if you could reduce the FUD factor.

 
Posted by: elambert Accepted Answer
6/21/2005 8:30 AM (CST)
While they are different than traditional banner ads and may be an effective means of advertising, as a website user, I find them very annoying and deceptively intrusive. They seem to come from no where, cover up desired information, and then dare you to test your mouse skills by attempting to hit a small moving target at the risk of missing and clicking into more unwanted propaganda.

But hey, that is just me.

Ernie
 
Posted by: Carl Crawford Accepted Answer
6/21/2005 10:41 AM (CST)
I have only ever seen them on two sites that I have visited:

Yahoo mail and www.ttdown.com .

For Yahoo mail it was asking me if I wanted to take a survey to improve yahoos services, I clicked it and gave them my opinion.

For ttdown it is a permanent ad, on there home page. When I visit there site I use the www.noscript.net plug-in for firefox and have booked marked the page that I visit most often so I can by pass it.

Personally I like these ads better than pop ups as long as they disappear quickly if not clicked.
 
Posted by: Patrick A.Y Accepted Answer
6/21/2005 11:06 PM (CST)
David,

In terms of data on rates, the publishers (ie Yahoo!) should have reliable answers to how such popups have consistently performed.

Personally, pop-ups are intrusive and hence why pop-up stoppers are gaining prominence.

However, that shouldn't deter a great creative that catches the eyeball offering relevant content that 'floats' prominently for just a few sec before retreating back to its place.

Done well, your click-through should perform 100% - 150% better than average from personal experience.

Measuring the cost benefit for such endeavors in my opinion is not just vs the annoyance rate but whether you can get the right mix of relevancy, creative, timing and place for the popup to minimise annoyance. Compare this to just a banner on a static location, the popup shd fare better.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Pat
 
Posted by: E-Marketing* Author Response
6/21/2005 11:30 PM (CST)
Thanks everyone for your input on this. I will publish the "Voken results" here in a day or so to give you all the summary of the feedback you have provided plus a few "principles" of how to be successful with a voken (again based on your input, and some other poking around I've been doing).
 
Posted by: KSA Accepted Answer
6/22/2005 12:33 AM (CST)
E-Marketing,

You might be interested in this site:

http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/995311

Its an article about pop-ups and vokens. There's a part 1 you can probably locate on the site, also.

Looking forward to your results.

Kathleen
 
Posted by: E-Marketing* Author Response
6/22/2005 12:37 AM (CST)
Thanks - I've perused that one already. It is surprising how few pieces of information there are out there about this type of advertising. I also just downloaded a good article from eMarketer: White Paper - Rich Media: At The Tipping Point, May 2005.
 
Posted by: Mushfique Manzoor Accepted Answer
6/22/2005 9:16 AM (CST)
hi e-marketing

although i have been exposed to VOKEN on few occassions, my 2 cents are...

first as a surfer/net user, i simply hate it. the reasons,

1. as others mentioned, its annoying, creates obstacles in viewing your desired webpage content.

2. More importanly, it moves in accordance with Murphy's Law, whenever i am in a hurry to view some information from site, of all the pages of all the sites of the wold this VOKEN walks into mine.

as a marketer i have two views.

first, this is indeed attentive, it shakes the surfer and catches his/her attention.

second, although this VOKEN is an innovative one, IMHO, since most surfers gets annoyed i would say, we gotta really think about whether this form of advertising is really effective or not. any advertising that annoys the target group has a high probability IMHO to have a very low recall.

those are just my thoughts, hope this helps.

cheers!!
 
Posted by: E-Marketing* Author Response
6/22/2005 5:26 PM (CST)
Vokens – Liked by marketers, loathed by everyone else.

[Note 1 – I started writing this by simply collecting ideas in a MS-Word document. My initial intent was to use this for my own personal information only. However, I wanted to share this with everyone who has participated on this chain. Therefore, my apologies to anyone who I have not given appropriate recognition.]
[Note 2 – Thanks for everyone who participated in this chain, as I have summarized your thoughts in the following, along with content from other places.]
[Note 3 – Other sources that I know I have used to create this summary include:
• eMarketer White Paper - Rich Media: At The Tipping Point, May 2005
• Let’s Hear if for the Voken. Tessa Wegert. January 24, 2002. http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/960401
• Pop-Up Ads, Part 2: Usage Guidelines for Legitimate Marketers. Tessa Wegert. March 21, 2002. http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/995311]
[Note 4: Sorry for the format... this looks much better in MS-Word]

== Definition ==
A Voken is an "Interactive virtual token", also known as a “Floating Ad”. They are online clickable ads that appear to float-over the content of a site. They can be closed, and sometimes they simply vanish after showing up for a while. Vokens can move around the page, can overlap existing elements, or be placed in any static location. Clicking on a Voken delivers new content in the form of a new browser window or interstitial.

A Voken is a type of rich media. Rich Media has many different definitions – but for the purposes, eMarketer defines Rich Media by its purposes not its technology:
Rich media advertising uses motion (animated or video), sound and/or interactivity to engage its audience. That engagement may simply be a better way to capture an individual’s attention for direct response goals, or it may be a brand’s attempt to build mindshare or weave its way into the consumer’s heart. … Rich media ads allow marketers to engage audiences at an emotional level that once was the hallmark of television ads alone. The emotional impact of rich media combined with the power of targeting gives marketers tools not available in any other medium.
eMarketer White Paper - Rich Media: At The Tipping Point, May 2005

Interestingly enough, based on feedback from members of the MarketingProfs.com community (and presumably, therefore, some level of professional marketers), Marketers like the potential power of Vokens, while those same Marketers when they are wearing their Web Surfer hats as members of the general public hate Vokens when they get in the way of their viewing and enjoying their web viewing experience. (This was clearly not a scientific study).

== The Pros & Cons of the Voken ==
In favour:
• Rich media click-through rates have outperformed non-rich media click-throughs. They have declined (albeit the decline has leveled off but that is possibly due to the format becoming more familiar. Click-throughs for rich media is still higher than for static content ads by as much as five times higher.
• Vokens have enjoyed a click-through rate slightly above 4%, while average click-throughs hover around 1-2% on static ads.
• DoubleClick has found that consumers were more likely to visit an advertiser’s Web site or purchase the company’s product after viewing a rich-media ad than a non-rich media one.
• Vokens do have a higher recall value, as compared to normal Banners, since they are more interactive, and exhibit mobility, in terms of the look-and-feel of the ads
• Vokens are still “something different” – and as a result of being unusual they attract attention
• The Curiosity Factor entails an increase in the click-through rate, provided they are positioned next to the content (header or sidebar).
• Vokens can be closed by use of the “X”, or the “Close” button, and in the best case they can be interacted or played with.
• The "Communication" becomes the 2nd step. The first step is "Interest generation", which is the customer's side - you don’t display offerings right away.
• These ads are better than pop ups as long as they disappear quickly if not clicked.
• Viewers have become more tolerant of pop-ups – but maybe this is just that they are numb to them but still dislike them.

Against:
• An intrusion magnified a few more times than banner.
• Very annoying and yet sometimes very amusing.
• The “X” or “Close” is often not easy to click
• It is like video game with a short time limit as you frantically try to find the X and click it.
• They usually block what the user is trying to look
• It is disturbing to have something float across the screen when you are trying to move through content quickly
• They tend to operate even more intrusively than standard pop-ups which can be closed with relative ease.
• “The only thing I tend to look for with a pop-up or a Voken is the 'close' button so I can get on with doing what I was doing before being intruded upon.”
• If the "Vokens" are positioned OVER the content, the click rates might be misleading, since most of the clicks might be made by mistake!
• The time factor can work against you also. That is, simple moving pieces can become annoying
• Unfortunately, "Curiosity Factor" gets you the customer. You can’t sustain the click rates, just based on the curiosity factor. When the customer comes back to the same site, this is when it is translated into "Annoyance Rate".
• Initial reaction when things start showing up on my computer and floating around the page is, "oh, no, I have a virus".
• Consumers now associate intrusive Rich Media with unpopular (and unscrupulous) advertisers that are flooding the Web.
• They are very annoying and deceptively intrusive. They seem to come from no where, cover up desired information, and then dare you to test your mouse skills by attempting to hit a small moving target at the risk of missing and clicking into more unwanted propaganda.

== Success Factors / Principles ==
• Keep the timeline short & don’t overlay the user’s desired content during the animation (perhaps only for a very short period of time (e.g. .5 – 1 seconds))
• Keep the "Close" button handy – easy to find and click off!
• The path of the Voken should not run over editorial content or other paid advertising, and the path of the Voken should only display once.
• Cap Voken frequency to one ad per session in order to limit viewer frustration and increase the interaction with it. Viewers are more tolerant of intrusive rich media if it is delivered relatively infrequently.
• Make the ads interactive – Can you provide more interaction than a “Close” button? What other buttons / activities can they be made to perform that will attract attention?
• Plan and execute your online ad mix with intent in order to build the “right mix” of relevancy, creative, timing and place for the Voken to minimize annoyance.
• Mix and match ad formats. The presence of static banners will help to ensure consumers will notice the campaign, even if they overlook or avoid the Vokens and other Rich Media.
 
Posted by: Carl Crawford Member Response
6/22/2005 9:29 PM (CST)
Wow, this is going to make a student very happy if they ever get asked a question about the pros and cons of "Vokens". LOL :P
 


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