I saw a program the other day that suggested (after a big poll) that pop-up advertising actually has the reverse of the desired effect. A lot of people are now actively avoiding any product that appears as a pop-up.
Don't know about you, but any machine without pop-up killers (and some are really clever - not just kill every window that appears) just refines my skill at destroying a window in milliseconds. Main bug bear for me is not the adverts themselves, but that they keep reappearing on every bloody page. So you go to a site, the stupid ad appears, you close it (sometimes not that easy to find close button - eg. Nokia), you select something from the site, and the f**king ad appears again, and again, and again!!!!!!!!!!
I now totally avoid anything that really gets on my nerves. So, no, I will not buy am NGage (wouldn't anyway, they look stupid as a phone, but def. no now). Intrusive advertising can get stuffed basically. Same goes for sales reps over the phone... I cannot say how angry that gets me... and you cannot really use services to stop them as, apparently, some useful services (your bank for instance) might be stopped.
As to normal advertising (TV and mags), then that's not so bad. You expect it be there, so no intrusive annoyance when you least expect it. And there have been a couple of times when I have been influenced, but that's normally when they publish facts. So, when they advertise the number of colours used for the SNES and Mhz of chip, I was impressed (for a console). And when Time advertised one of their machines with 1Gb of ram, and 200Gb of HD, I was impressed (less so when I saw the rest of the spec). But not when it is just a picture. And give the bloody 0-60 times for cars in ads!!!!
Heh, a friend of mine used to get lots of ad stuff through the post (credit cards etc), so he used to post back to them with the included pre-paid envelope with someone else's ad. Nice. He got obsessed, and used to do at least four or five a day (he got a lot). He doesn't get much now...
And phone sales reps? Either swear a lot at them (don't pretend you are not in, or are someone else - it doesn't work, trust me) or just put the phone down mid speel. Also, just putting the phone on the table and doing something else is quite good (they rabbit on to themselves for a while). All this gives them the idea that you hate them. I get a lot less calls now (used to be about 5-10 a day).
Cheers
Ps. Take your world's biggest casino and shove it up your a**e!
Oh, and Rich.... Gnome Ranger?
I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
