• by March 23, 2004

Among various forms of advertising, consumers are repelled by spam and telemarketing but feel fairly positive about print advertising, according to Dynamic Logic's Advertising Reaction Study. Among the consumers polled, the market research firm found that TV and online advertising fell roughly in the middle of the pack with regard to attitudes toward ad formats.

Dynamic Logic asked consumers their opinions about newspaper, magazine, radio, outdoor, TV, Web, opt-in email, direct mail, spam (non-opt-in email), and telemarketing ads. Respondents were asked to rate their feelings about various forms of advertising via the following responses: "Very Positive," "Somewhat Positive," "Neutral," "Somewhat Negative," and "Very Negative."

According to the findings, 93 percent of consumers feel negative toward telemarketing versus 6 percent for newspaper ads. Dynamic Logic says consumer attitudes toward advertising take into account such factors as intrusiveness, frequency, ad/edit ratio, clutter, targeting, and creative.

The firm notes that TV and radio ads are intrusive, yet they are more popular with consumers than formats that take less time and can be quickly closed, skipped, or ended (Web, direct mail, telemarketing).

Dynamic Logic also observes that online advertising, which has sparked intense consumer ire for its many intrusive formats, has also attracted traditional marketers to the medium that have been accustomed to using more intrusive forms of advertising. "So perhaps intrusiveness, by itself, is not the issue," the study suggests, adding: "Rather, it may have more to do with the media conditioning or level of advertising people are accustomed to in a specific format." Or the study suggests that frequency, or how many times an ad runs, ad/edit ratios, relevancy of ads through targeting, the degree of clutter, and strength of creative each contribute to building either positive or negative consumer perceptions.

"The creative is what's going to win them or lose them," notes Christine Goodman, marketing director, Dynamic Logic. Entertaining and visually compelling creative in any marketing medium tends to keep consumers interested.

When it comes to online advertising, James Hering, senior vice president, TM Interactive, notes that online is still in its adolescence: "We haven't totally figured out a way to do information delivery and be emotionally engaging and impactful with consumers." For Hering, the Dynamic Logic findings suggest that "consumers appreciate good content and good advertising, and they hate bad content and bad advertising--and they can damn well tell the difference."

Other key findings from the study detailed consumers' opinions about online ad formats. The question about online ad formats asked: "In general, would you characterize your attitude as positive or negative toward each of the following formats of online advertising?"

Of those surveyed, 26 percent rated online banner ads "Very Positive or "Somewhat Positive," while 61 percent were "Neutral." For skyscrapers, 25.4 percent of respondents were very positive or somewhat positive, and 23.1 percent for pop-in between ads or interstitials. On the flip side, for intersitials, 56 percent of respondents were somewhat negative or very negative with regard to the format. On ads with audio, only 15.3 percent of respondents were very positive or somewhat positive, while 62.8 percent had negative associations. With regard to large rectangles or squares that sit in the corner or center of a Web page, consumers were overwhelmingly negative--62.4 percent. Only 26.4 percent of them were neutral toward the seemingly harmless rectangle.

Most notable, however, was the finding that 74.6 percent of respondents had negative associations with video ads, versus 14.1 percent who were neutral and 10 percent who were positive. Out-of-frame ads, or animations that scoot over and around the page, scored 4.7 percent positive, versus 84 percent negative.

Streaming video, which Microsoft Corp.'s MSN will tout on Thursday at its annual Customer Summit for marketers and agencies, represents the future of online advertising, at least according to its proponents. Hering believes it's a more complicated issue: "I don't think we're going to see an evolution to where people are buying 30-second spots on Web sites." Hering says that he recently conducted a test with streaming media via client ExxonMobil. In one flight, streaming media appeared inside the ad unit; in another, he ran the campaign with Unicast's full-screen format.

The average view-through rate, or the percentage of people watching the entire 30-second Exxon spot, was 50 percent for the streaming video format, and only 20 percent for Unicast's format. "What that showed me was that people want some degree of control," Hering says. "When you broadcast elements that are delivered within the predetermined boundaries of advertising placement, people are more receptive to it because it is not totally blocking out their experience."

Overall, of his ad test, Hering says: "It tends to suggest that people are less patient to have their entire screen occupied with an ad message."

Not surprisingly, pop-unders had the most negative rating: 84.7 percent of those polled dislike them, while 91 percent found pop-ups offensive.

The Dynamic Logic research was fielded in December 2003. Respondents were chosen from the company's database of more than one million people who have completed surveys over the last four years. Ultimately, 425 respondents were randomly chosen for the AdReaction study.