Annoyingly Pointless Advertising

~ beetleypete

We all know that we have to tolerate a degree of advertising online. Free email accounts, being able to read articles and some newspapers, and even blogging if you don’t pay to upgrade. The ads appear; sometimes relevant, usually not.

However, I am nominating two champions of annoyingly pontless advertising for some kind of award.
(I don’t know what award, unless I make one up. The APA trophy?)

Amazon. Yes, Prime is worth the money, in my opinion. Whatever you might need, usually significantly cheaper, and delivered within 24 hours. (At least in Beetley it is) If you like that sort of thing, you also get Amazon TV, and access to free books and other stuff that I tend to ignore.

But their advertising is SO annoying. I recently bought Julie a stand mixer for her baking. Two days after it arrived, I received an advertising email from Amazon. They were suggesting that I should buy a stand mixer. The same one at the same price, that I had taken delivery of 48 hours earlier. Is their system so lame that it doesn’t realise I already have one? Or do they (stupidly) presume I want two? Since then they have sent the same email three more times.

Second nomination is for our friend, (or not) Google Chrome. Many years ago now, I changed from using the Firefox Browser because it wasn’t working so well with WordPress. I already had a GMail account, so it was an obvious transition to download Google Chrome as my main browser. Four days later, I received an advertising email in my GMail account suggesting I download Google Chrome to use as my browser, and extolling its benefits. I cannot reply to those emails, unfortunately, but you would think they would have some way of knowing that I was using Google Chrome to reply to other Gmails and search for things online?

Obviously not, as every single day since, they have sent me the same no-reply email, now over 1600 times!

I really would like to contact both companies and try to do something about it. But life is far too short.

47 thoughts on “Annoyingly Pointless Advertising”

  1. I remember BT sending me an e-mail trying to sell me the same service I already had from them, and I replied telling them they would be better off trying to send it to somebody who wasn’t already a client. Then they decided that was a complaint (?) and decided to offer me a better rate. Honestly, I was pleased but couldn’t understand their thought process, although, I didn’t complain! (Perhaps I should have)!

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    1. I get repeated emails from EE about my mobile phone service, offering me a ‘better deal’. When I click to accept it, it tells me ‘Not for existing customers’. It’s crazy!

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  2. The ads that annoy me the most are the ones that keep interrupting music videos on YouTube. I don’t mind them at the beginning or the end of an album/mix – after all, I’m getting it for free – but when they keep interrupting it all the way through – sometimes in the middle of a track – I drives me mad. I don’t know how they sell anything with them as I always skip them so I can go back to the music and I imagine most people do the same. Totally pointless.

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    1. I record TV shows that have advertising, then watch them later so I can fast-forward the adverts. I never buy anything advertised, so wonder why they waste so much money.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  6. Advertising is overtaking everything these days. I have forced myself not to allow it to irritate me because I would become demented. My email every day is filled with crap, people trying to hook me into giving my id. I did the whole changing passwords and even got a new Amazon account but it made no difference. What a world this has become.

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    1. Unfortunately, the Internet era has also become the ‘golden age of fraud’. The only way to avoid the irritation is to never open an email.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  7. I bought a dozen shot glasses from Amazon. The next day they sent an email suggesting I buy some shot glasses. How many does one need? Maybe they thought I was a pub.

    Amazon has also suggested I buy my own books, and keep on sending me emails about shoes since I looked for them. Admittedly, I didn’t buy that time.

    And on two occasions when we bought something for someone else and asked for the said item to be delivered directly to them, we got one as well!

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    1. I have no genuine complaints about the service I get from Amazon as a customer as they have never put a foot wrong since I started using them. But the way they ask me to buy the same (or identical, just a different brand) thing all the time has started to really annoy me.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  8. Advertising is the bane of our lives these days. We now record programmes and watch them the next day so as to fast-forward through up to 6 minutes of advertising. Also adverts appear every day at the top of my Outlook email messages. I delete them and more appear. It’s so irritating but we have to find ways of getting around it.

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    1. I also record TV shows that have advertising and skip the ads on fast-forward. When you see the time counting down on screen, then you realise just how long some commercial breaks really are.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  9. Meanwhile in the Garden of Eden, Adam has been getting annoyingly pointless ads from Figaro’s Fig Leafs Unlimited. Of course, he has access to free fig leafs due to his Genesis Prime account. Adam is sure that the Devil is behind the APA’s because capitalism is sinful. Eve, however, likes to shop, and says Figaro’s fig leafs come in a variety of styles and colors. So she doesn’t mind the ads at all.

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    1. If I mark the Amazon emails as Spam, I wont get the order updates I need. Then if I mark the Google emails as Spam, I won’t get any blog-related emails. I’m trapped! 🙂

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  13. Immediately after I “liked” your post I received an email offering me a three year package of online CLE courses for $199 (an alleged $679 value). The ridiculous part is that I bought the exact same package from them a week ago for $99.

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  14. It was you Pete that pointed out how much time the BBC spent advertising their own programmes. This cleared up my confusion as I was always thinking I had put the wrong channel on when I found myself in the middle of a totally different programme to what I was expecting.. BBC Radio is just as bad, continually referring to BBC Sounds so we don’t know if or when a programmes is going to actually be on the radio.

    I have conquered BBC sounds now and find it great if I have missed something, but i still prefer the sound quality of my digital radios to the iPad.

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    1. Not only do they advertise their own programmes between unrelated programmes, they advertise the next segment of drama series episodes at the end of each episode. I don’t want to see the ‘best bits’ of next week’s episode, I want to be surprised when I sit down to watch it next week! I blame the ‘binge-watchers’, they want immediate gratification.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  15. Those ads with buy one get one free plus all the supposed extra free items. My choice sell me one at half price and reduce price further by taking out all the supposed free extras.

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  20. One of the many irritations of modern life, Pete; I think it’s as much a test of character as it is a useful service; although that might imply I think some outside influence is at work here; which, of course, it isn’t. Or is it…….? 😉 Cheers, Jon.

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