Why Are We Unrelated To Ads After A Time?

Our mind and consciousness are more advanced and ingenious than any intelligent system that has been bestowed upon us by creation and developed by almost human beings. Basically, our consciousness based on the shortest and most practical benefit for survival has an algorithm that automatically shifts unimportant things that are not useful to us from the focus of our attention. The point we will try to express in our article explains exactly one of these points: “Banner blindness.”

What is Banner Blind?

This term, known as banner or advertising blindness, is one of the concepts that emerged with the large digitalization of the advertising industry. Banners are advertisements placed on the most geometrically striking part of the website on websites. It is one of the most common types of modern internet advertising. Banner blindness is when users click on these ads involuntarily or with a curiosity motive, and the users become indifferent or blind to the banner advertisements because they are both unrelated and dragging the user to annoying media. Banner blindness is considered a type of automatic reflex that develops as the result of negative experiences. Banner blindness is one of the most emphasized issues by researchers in internet advertising, which is considered the backbone of the advertising industry. The term first arose from a test study investigating the usability of ads on websites in 1998. The test was based on revealing what points on the screen the eyes were consciously focusing on using the eye tracking technique and what the eye scanning path was. In this context, it revealed that the subjects in the test developed a conscious blindness to banner-style ads after a while.

In another research on web advertising efficiency, banner blindness was seen so widespread that 44% of the ads prepared as banners were not seen by any visitors. Some studies even claimed that 93% of ads did not interact with visitors in any way due to banner blindness. The first banner advertisements were given in 1994. Since then, banner ads have started to appear in internet advertising at multiplying rates every year.

Although banner ads have a feature that conveys consumers to the products they need and increases product sales by appealing to the subconscious, when used at the wrong time and in the wrong context, brand reputation and page visitors can be missed. Since banner ads are created with an algorithm based on search engine data, they are often placed on pages addressing the needs of consumers directly. As a matter of fact, although banner blindness enables users not to see the banner ads at a high rate, this advertisement is placed in a corner of the memory even if the consumer does not want it due to the way the subconscious works record everything.

Causes of Banner Blindness

The main reason for banner blindness is the increase in the rate of banner advertisements and the unwanted and annoying experiences of the users due to this increase. When there are more than a certain number of banner advertisements on a page, users automatically start to eliminate all materials that they think could be banners. Again, in recent years, as web pages have remained in an ad confusion due to excessive banner advertisements, users have begun to see the internet as a medium completely covered with advertisements, and this is another factor that triggers banner blindness. Banner blindness easily starts to develop, as the increase in animated ads, which are frequently preferred in banner advertising, strains the human mind and attention ability.

In recent years, research has shown that banner advertisements are one of the most complained issues by internet users. This shows that users who are bombarded with advertisements do not actually like these ads and are disturbed by them. Banner blindness also describes a situation that users can adapt to very quickly when identified with the negative experience of the users.

Banner ads are seen by users as poisoning to the content they want to obtain, but on the other side of the coin, there is a completely different truth. The secret of providing many services to us for free is actually banner ads. The content we benefit from without paying any subscription fee and site administration costs are largely financed by the income from banner advertisements.

In this regard, site administrators and advertising experts provide some recommendations for placing banner ads on the page:

1-Pay special attention to the color selection and visuals you will use in banner ads.

2-Test ie demo before placing banners to make sure that users will not interfere with the content they want to search.

3-Make sure the content is compatible and similar to the ad.

We can list the positive effects of advertisements on children as follows:

1. Advertisements inform children about the outside world and social life. Introductory and accurate information included in the advertisements contributes to the increase of the child’s information capacity.

2. The child watching the advertisement is important in terms of getting closer to the objects of the adult world. Getting closer to new things positively affects the social development of the child.

3. Giving messages to show positive behavior in advertisements (wash hands, brush teeth, etc.) allows the child to show a change in his behavior.

4. In advertisements, children performing a theater or a sports show, taking part in a social responsibility project encourages children who watch this advertisement to participate in such activities.

5. Encouraging the use of healthy foods (fish, milk, yoghurt etc.) in advertisements contributes to the healthy eating habits of children.

6. Advertisements teach children market knowledge such as being a consumer, choosing between products and choosing the right product.

7. The musics, dances, and idiosyncratic movements used in advertisements help children to move and support their physical and motor development.

8. Users, the use of visuals, colors, rapid visual changes in advertisements is important in terms of ensuring that children keep the scenes in their memories.

We can list the negative effects of advertisements on children as follows:

1. Displaying many advertisements lined up one after another in a short time negatively affects children’s ability to concentrate their attention.

2. Introducing ready-made foods, sugary, fatty, salty and high-calorie foods and beverages in advertisements increases the consumption of these products. For this reason, it can cause health problems such as diabetes, obesity and tooth decay in children.

3. Slang words used in advertisements, non-Turkish made-up words, mouth and accent usage, children’s imitation of these lines in daily life affect their language development and speech negatively.

4. Advertisements aim to increase the awareness of the names of the brands they promote and the rate of preference. Children who learn the brand name prefer certain brands in order to prefer this brand in their peers or to look wealthy. This situation may cause children to become addicted to the brand.

5. Exposure to sexual and violent adult advertisements negatively affect children’s psychosocial development, communication skills and sexual perception.

6. The difference between the real product and the product promoted in the advertisement, the misleading and deceptive nature of the advertisements, damages the child’s sense of trust and may cause the child to display deceit and deception behavior.

7. Promoting the products in an exaggerated way causes the children who want those products to be disappointed that the children with insufficient socio-economic status cannot have these products.

8. The persistent demand of the product promoted in advertisements by the child in the market or in the shopping center may cause conflicts between parents and children. Taking every product the child sees in the advertisement with the child may cause him to develop an insatiable and wasteful personality.

The responsibilities of families in reducing the negative effects of advertisements and protecting children from these effects are as follows:

1. Parents inform your children about conscious TV watching, safe internet and phone usage.

2. TV and internet use of the child should not be excessive and a limit should be set in this regard.

3. Warn the children not to watch advertisements on the internet or mobile applications and not to click on the relevant links. In mobile applications, choose programs that do not contain advertising whenever possible.

4. Set a good example for the child. Don’t waste too much time with TV and Internet.

5. Make sure the channels your child watches are broadcasting positive content. Remove children’s channels that carry negative messages from your channel list and be careful to choose channels where educational programs are broadcast.

6. Tell the child that what he’s watching is just a movie, a fiction.

7. Pay attention to the content of the program to be watched. Do not watch programs that may harm the development of the child. Keep the child away from websites that are harmful to his development and take necessary security measures.

8. Be selectively an example for your child in the ads you watch.

9. Do not use ads as a means of distracting children. (while eating, sleeping ..)

10. Do not buy every product your child sees and wants in the advertisement. Explain why you cannot buy it and take care to buy products that need it. Thus, you will instill consumer awareness in your child.

11. Do not allow your child to sleep early and watch TV or use the internet until late.

In the age of technology, where we are bombarded with advertising, it is difficult to protect children against adverse advertisements, but it is possible to minimize damages and risks with the measures that can be taken.