Advertising Atrocity

Quite possibly one of the oddest success stories in advertising, the epileptic banner ad continues to be a mainstay in online campaigns for various mundane services, such as car insurance and mortgage companies. Its first, and most famous, incarnation was the dancing silhouettes used by LowerMyBills.com that were virtually ubiquitous (pun intended) for several years. Recently a smaller, yet no less optically painful example of this form of advertising has popped up on weather.com. If you haven’t seen it, it shows two women gyrating jerkily, a telltale sign of an animated GIF file. One of the women, dressed in Midwest-modest attire, shakes her rear enthusiastically, as if dancing to some unheard bass-heavy beat. The other woman, smiling, does a lame “raise-the-roof” motion. Somehow this combination is supposed to incite me to check my car insurance. Huh? Someone please end this abomination of advertising.