Dear video advertisers: stop messing with my volume control

Yesterday evening we were watching an episode of The Daily Show online and were assaulted by boosted volume advertising spots. Looking at the flash-based player, I noticed that the flash volume control was maximized (and then locked) during advertising play. Now I know that boosting the audio volume of advertising is an old trick commonly (still?) used in TV. Are there studies that prove its effectiveness? Here at Falcon Labs, we conducted a controlled experiment and the results were clear: boosting the volume of video advertising is a bad idea. Why?

  1. The sudden loud noise is an unpleasant experience for the viewer and that unpleasant feeling is associated with the brand being marketed.
  2. While the volume change gets a viewers attention, they are then that much more likely to temporarily mute their computer's audio output. In experiments where the advertising did not change the volume level, most viewers left the volume controls alone.

I have no idea who to actually ask about this. Might it be a feature of the embedded video players? In any case, this practice should stop.

archived on 2009-01-31 in

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