Roll Over and What? : Testing Your Ads On Someone Who Isn't a Web Designer Might Be a Good Idea

Ok, as a former HIV/STD educator, I appreciate that this vaccine is a good idea.

However, as a web developer for the past decade plus, I still see these ads and think, "What? Roll over and bark? Roll over and play dead?"

The tall one especially has connotations that I don't really like as a woman. Because the line, "you can be something that women before you never had a chance to be. Roll over." sounds horrifically like a calling cast for an open slot on The Girls Next Door.

And if they are trying to be coy and make sexual allusions, they are missing the demographic for these wildly. (The vaccination is best before someone is sexually active.)

I think the real issue here is this: don't assume your audience knows what the heck a roll-over, fly-out, drop-down, pull-down, pop-up, mouse-over, mouse-out, on-click, scroll-down (yes, scroll-down), alt-click, or ctrl-click is. What is web designer vocabulary doing in an ad targeting msn readers?

Yeah, some of the userswill know what this means. But many of them are going to wonder what the heck looking at the ceiling has to do with guarding their daughters.