Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

What’s more important? Receiving free content and access to your favorite websites, or not having to see ads on the sites once you get there?

Advertising Age columnist Mike Vorhaus recently tested the theory that consumers would rather see ads on their favorite sites than pay for content. Apparently, even an annual subscription fee of $39.99, less than $4 a month, is too much to pay for viewing ad-free websites. Even dropping the rate by $10 to less than $3 a month only managed to sway an additional 1.9% of consumers to join the 5.9% that said that would either definitely or be very likely to pay the fee. 84% of respondents were either certain they wouldn’t or thought it very unlikely that they would pay.

The findings directly contradict the popular notion that consumers hate all ads. In fact, above content ads have become more acceptable to web surfers, according to Dynamic Logic. There are still some types of ads users prefer not to see, such as pop-ups and pop-unders, but the notion that online ads are unwelcome in every format is outdated.

 Rachel