Have you ever won the hourly prize?

Am I missing something unbelievably subtle and cunning here ... or are adverts like this:



a complete and utter waste of space?

Does anybody bother to click them, or am I not alone in thinking that they are an obvious, transparent attempt to get you to visit a site selling products so naff that you wouldn't normally give it the time of day?

And has anyone ever actually won anything by clicking one of these?

[Stuartbe]

Aaaarg - turn it off.... get rid of it... Nooooooooooooooooooo

that has to be the single most annoying advert on the net, as for clicking on it, my instinctive reaction is to click off the site it is on.

[Russ]

I'm clicking on it but nothing's happening - and what have I won?


















and yes I'm joking

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by Russ D

I'm clicking on it but nothing's happening - and what have I won?

You have won the " look at this wally that clicked on our banner " award

Its probobly a lifetime subscription to the spam of your choice

I can't help thinking that these ads are targeted at a particular type of person who does actually think they might have won something.

Kind of reminds me of an early Simpsons episode in which Homer is trying to decide what to buy Bart for his birthday. An ad comes on TV for a microphone that can transmit on broadcast radio frequency. Homer is pondering whether to buy it until the voice-over says, 'hurry, only limited stocks left!' at which point he panics and jumps for the phone. Cut to bored warehouse rep sitting in a huge warehouse full of the things.

Guess you had to be there, actually... but you get the idea.

As soon as I see something like that I leave the offending site at a rapid pace.

[ian@huth]

It's the same as the "you are the 537896 visitor to the site and have won a prize" that I have seen on some sites. Six months later on a different PC you are still the 537896 visitor.

[Matth]

I use the blocker that came with my firewall - it's not hyper-tuned, but it GETS tuned to knock out tripe like that - I wouldn't even let a "friend" site get away with that one.

The TV counterpart for annoyance is those marks and spencer ads

[ntl customer]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

It's the same as the "you are the 537896 visitor to the site and have won a prize" that I have seen on some sites. Six months later on a different PC you are still the 537896 visitor.

You mean this one...

I'm clicking on it but nothing's happening - and what have I won?

I've clicked on it and it took me to this page which gives me a freephone number to call and also the counter on it is useless - it just loops round after 180 seconds .

Seeing as they are paying for it, I decided to ring it up to see what I had got. They put you through to a line with an American voice on saying you have won something and they have some crappy on hold muzak for a few seconds, then you get through to an operator who was an American chap in my case. Digging a little deeper reveals that you have not actually won anything for free (unsurprisingly ) but a £299 holiday to somewhere for a few nights.

So all in all, it's a load of bull****! :pp

[kronas]

i know what you can win..............a hugely expensive phone bill if you happen to ring them!!!

Originally Posted by kronas

i know what you can win..............a hugely expensive phone bill if you happen to ring them!!!

thats why you should use someone elses phone

[Mal]

Originally Posted by Damien

thats why you should use someone elses phone

Bet your friends love you then

Originally Posted by Mal

Bet your friends love you then

nah, go out and get your self arrested and then phone them using your one phone call.

and you wonder where the governments money is going