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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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

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

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!!