Friday, August 3, 2012

Take on the in-app banner

When I downloaded a new app for my two year old, I was expecting it to
give me a few minutes of quiet during a long car-ride or a long dinner
at a restaurant. What I got instead was an even bigger surprise. The
new Teddy Bear game seemed innocent enough allowing toddlers to build
a bear like they do at the stores by choosing a color, stuffing it
with foam, selecting hats, dresses, shoes and eyewear. The weird
thing was that as my daughter was playing it, her dad was all of a
sudden much more interested in it than she was.
This free app designed and marketed for kids uses a combination of
methods for payment including in-app purchases and banner ads. I find
the in-app purchases a bit annoying as I prefer to pay for it up-front
but the banner ads never bothered me...until now
They had a scrolling ad of some hot chick sprawled along the bottom of
the screen. I didn't click on it but something tells me it wasn't
going to take me to Sesame Street. I hate marketing to kids as much
as anybody but at least a cereal or playhouse is (mostly) harmless.

It was as if the TeddyBear game was recruiting little girls to be strippers

I figure it's probably a generated ad, which picks up the word 'teddy'

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