Is it ever ok for websites to start playing audio automatically?

A few years ago there seemed to be general consensus within the usability community that auto-starting audio on webpages was 'a bad thing'. A 2004 survey, quoted on Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox in an article entitled 'Most Hated Advertising Techniques', found that 79% of respondents answered "negatively" or "very negatively" when asked about online ads which automatically play sound. Of course, people get annoyed by most aspects of online advertising, however it wasn't just audio from ads which got people's goat, as this wonderful 2005 thread from an Apple mailing list demonstrates. The thread starts with a query from a web developer about how to add background music to their client's webpage but the discussion soon turns to why he would want to commit such a crime, climaxing with the immortal quote "Background music on a web page makes baby Jesus cry".

Fast-forward a few years and the debate has moved on. Gone are the conversations about the niceties of embedding a MIDI file as background music (thank the Lord). The main game-changer has been the widespread adoption of Flash streaming, precipitated by the growth of broadband and the unprecedented success of a certain video sharing website. Suddenly, every man and his dog is streaming in Flash and the issue of audio auto-start is very much back in play.

Leaving the technology to one side for a moment, the most significant impact of YouTube on the debate is that more and more webpages have A/V as their primary purpose. Auto-starting audio on a page where the media is the main event is potentially very different from a page where it is secondary or, worse, incidental.

That said, many of the same issues remain. A huge amount of internet use is office-based where not everyone has headphones and not all colleagues are likely to appreciate a sudden burst of Chocolate Rain. The growth in broadband has also meant more users will already be listening to audio whilst browsing the web (75% of broadband users have listened to radio whilst browsing according to the Radio Advertising Bureau). Another, slightly less obvious issue, stems from the growth in tabbed browsing (pioneered by Opera and Firefox and then thrust into the mainstream by IE7). Anyone who's opted to restore their tabs from a previous browsing session will most likely also have spent some time trying to track down which tab is responsible for the audio blaring out of their speakers.

I guess it ultimately comes down to user expectations. The web isn't yet at a point where users expect audio to play without their specific say-so. YouTube is a partial exception in that the ubiquity of it's brand promise means that most users clicking on a YouTube URL in an email or elsewhere on the web will know to expect video (with accompanying audio) to start playing automatically. Few, if any, other websites enjoy that expectation. I still feel surprised and annoyed when I land on a MySpace page and audio starts playing automatically. Even the websites of inherently aural brands such as radio and television broadcasters are not yet expected to auto-start audio (yes, ABC, I'm talking about you).

Whether or not audio auto-start will ever become wholly acceptable on the web is a moot point. Web-enabled devices tend to be so inherently multi-function that it seems unlikely that the expectation of self-starting audio will ever take root in a way it has with traditionally single-function devices like radio or television sets. Interestingly, the majority of online advertisers have cottoned on to user expectations in this area, favouring visually arresting but silent videos, with an invitation to users to switch on the sound.

Perhaps user behaviours will shift (I'm already in the habit of hitting the mute button on my MacBook whenever unsolicited audio would be disruptive) or maybe the technology will evolve to automatically detect the appropriateness of audio in any given situation (e.g. computer thinks: it's after 10pm which means the kids are probably asleep so I won't play audio).

I'm personally of the view that audio auto-start remains a no-no on the web. Any potential benefit (e.g. attracting more attention, saving the user a click) is offset by the annoyance it will cause to others, many of whom will be scrabbling for the Back button / volume control and vowing not to return to your impertinent little website.

Interested to hear what other think - please leave a comment or vote in the below poll. Having road-tested PollDaddy a couple of months ago, I thought I'd give Vizu a spin this time...

Opinion Polls & Market Research

QR Codes - not just big in Japan?

Until a couple of weeks ago QR Codes were very much on the periphery of my attention radar. Then some of my colleagues working on the BBC Programmes BETA hit on the ingenious idea of automatically generating a QR Code for every BBC programme (just add /qrcode to the end of any programme page URL to view - more from Tom Scott).

Since then, QR Codes seem to be everywhere I turn. First I caught up with the news that The Sun newspaper has notched up 11,000 registered users for its mobile QR service, launched on the 5th December in The Sun's inimitable style (see below image). Then, today, Silicon Valley Insider revealed that Google is planning to sell newspaper ads with QR codes. Whilst only a fraction of handsets currently have the requisite decoding software installed, Google have a convenient Trojan horse in the form of Android (The Sun is directing readers to download the i-nigma reader).

You can generate your own QR Code of a URL, phone number, SMS or using free text (up to 250 characters) here. The above QR Code is of this blog's URL.


Image: The Sun

Can brands own colours?

According to marketing lore, it was once possible for a single brand to 'own' a colour; Coca Cola owned red, IBM owned blue, UPS owned brown (or so the legend goes). Regardless of whether this was ever really the case, it certainly ain't true now. Our globalised, digital world has more brands, shouting more loudly, across more media, than ever before.

Not that all companies have given up on the dream of owning a colour globally. Vodafone still seems pretty set on wresting red from Coke's clutches (with some success according to Martin Lindstrom’s 2005 book Brand Sense, in which he claims 30% of UK consumers now associate red with Vodafone, compared with 22% for Coke). The fight for red has been further complicated by the entry of (PRODUCT)^RED last year, which is hoping to own red across multiple sectors. That said, most companies have moved away from a goal of universal colour ownership and relocated the battle for colour supremacy to their own market sector.

Exhibit A is the 2005 legal dispute between Orange and easyGroup over the use of Pantone 151. Both companies had been using the distinctive shade of orange since the mid-90s, but it wasn't until Stelios announced the launch of the now-defunct easyMobile in 2004 that the mobile operator called in the lawyers; unsurprising when you consider that colour is the tacitly agreed brand differentiator amongst the mobile operators, where blue is synonymous with O2, magenta with T-Mobile, orange with, er, Orange and red with Vodafone (sorry Virgin). 3 opted out of the colour war by creating a chameleon logo, which employs different colours in different contexts.

Exhibit B is an Australian court action brought by Darrell Lea Chocolate Shops against confectionary giant Cadbury Schweppes last year. The judge found in favour of Darrell Lea concluding that "Cadbury does not own the colour purple and does not have an exclusive reputation in purple in connection with chocolate in Australia". Whilst Cadbury may have lost in court and been forced to amend the trademark claims on its packaging, it remains indelibly associated with purple in the minds of chocolate-loving consumers.

All of which is a precursor to asking whether it is possible to own a colour in the online space. My instinct is no - there are just too many competing brands. Strong colour/brand association is possible amongst UK mobile operators because there are only half a dozen of them. Likewise, cigarette companies successfully carved up the colours amongst them because there was a limited number of brands, enabling them to take out billboard ads or sponsor Formula One cars primarily on the strength of colour association (purple meant Silk Cut, gold meant Benson & Hedges, red meant Marlboro, black meant John Player Special).

However, the barriers to entry (and by extension, brand creation) on the web are so low that even in the same market sector, companies seem to have accepted the futility of attempting to own a single colour. The practicalities of web design may also feed into this; it's fine for Vodafone's full-page print ads and billboards to be almost entirely red, but that wouldn't work on its website (unless it was aiming to make its visitors' eyes bleed).

If ownership of a single colour is unattainable on the web, how about a particular combination of colours? Graham Beale got the ball rolling on this with a colour scheme montage posted on his blog, Hold and Modify. However, of the 15 represented, I could identify just 2 (Flickr and Blogger). Whilst Graham assures me that his fellow web designers were able to name many more, I think it's fair to infer that Joe Public wouldn't.

Interestingly, the one site which comes closest to achieving colour ownership on the web for me is lastminute.com which has had almost 10 years to stake its claim on a particularly aggressive shade of pink. Shown a swatch in isolation (or in a pink line-up with Smile and T-Mobile) I reckon I would be able to identify it, although that may just be the subliminal impact of their weekly newsletter in my inbox.

Whilst colour will undoubtedly remain a critical element of brand identity, both on and offline, I wonder if it's moving lower down in the mix as the marketplace becomes increasingly crowded and colour ownership is redefined as a pipe dream from a bygone era (the mythology is that Coke began its ownership of red in the 1950s by changing the colour of Santa's suit from green). The democratisation of branding, facilitated by the Internet, has blown the lid off the notion of colour exclusivity and marketing will need to become more sophisticated in response.

The song from that weird VW advert

A quick shout out for Commercial Breaks and Beats which bills itself as 'The UK Television Advert Music Database' and passes the Ronseal test by doing exactly what it says on the tin. With 2,329 ads currently in its database and the option to browse by Artist, Song Title, Company or Chronologically its a neat little resource. More importantly, it put me out of my musical misery yesterday by informing me that the song from the new Volkswagen Eos advert (the one with the oversize coffee pot and wind chimes that starts "I woke up dreaming, I was asleep...") is 'The Men in White Coats' by The Dallas Guild. According to their MySpace page (which offers four of their tracks as streams) they're still recording songs for their first album. In the meantime, you can buy an 320Kbps MP3 of 'The Men in White Coats' for a bargainous 79p from TuneTribe. Nice.

Danny Way / Regina Spektor Sky advert

Loathe though I am to take my hat off to the broadcasting brute that is Sky, I have to admit to a certain admiration for one of their current 'What Do You Want To Watch?' cinema ads (it may be on TV but I've only caught at the cinema). It features pro skateboarder Danny Way breaking two world records in one run on a custom-built 'Megaramp' back in June 2003, jumping 75 feet from ramp to ramp and clearing 23.5 feet of air. The icing on the cinematic cake is the accompanying music which is the sublime 'Us' by Regina Spektor. Unfortunately I can't find a copy of that trail online but here's another trail of the same jump from Danny Way's official site.