Commentary
Hate Advertising? Hell, Yeah!
- by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, July 17, 2014
Though I didn't look very hard, I strongly suspect that STRATA sells a solution that somehow makes video ads less "annoying" (better targeting?). Otherwise this survey, also picked up by the Wall Street Journal, is yet another astounding glimpse into the obvious. In the long and storied history of advertising, has anyone ever, ever fielded a study where consumers said they in fact liked commercials or any other kind of marketing (other than Super Bowl ad rankings, which in truth are just a ranking from less to more annoying)? While indeed a percentage of the populace would say they "love" this individual ad or that one (at least before they have seen it for the 12th time, when their affection has waned considerably), the persistent default response to being asked is that Americans hate advertising.
In any given poll, Americans also hate lobbyists, Congressional representatives, car salesmen, lawyers and business executives. And journalists. And admen (Don Draper aside). That this is news on any given day is a mystery to me.
There is a reason Americans embrace any and all technology to help them avoid or fast-forward through ads: because they are intrusive, disruptive, often not interesting and repetitive. Not to mention poorly targeted and, too often, irrelevant. So ads are basically a total waste of time for the brands behind them.
U.S. advertisers spend north of $170 billion on paid media each year. That doesn't count what it costs to produce the ads, which for a single TV spot can run from five figures to seven in a hurry. This gigantic economic sector would not exist if, in some way, somehow, Americans were overcoming their default hatred of advertising and responding to it. But don't bother asking them. Not only do they hate advertising, they are loath to say it influences their purchase decisions. Which is bullshit, but what are you going to do?
Maybe Wanamaker didn't know which half of his advertising was wasted, but these days brands are doing almost everything possible to assure their ads hit home and drive sales. They test creative ideas, optimize their media and creative units for best response. They have reams of data detailing nearly every aspect of when, where, why and how their ads make an impact. That brands still approve profoundly off-base creative and allow their agencies to make inefficient media buys and turn a blind eye to things like bot-drive impression fraud, is a whole 'nother story.
It does not take too many instances of ads that make spurious claims, that have questionable imagery or copy, or run in absolutely the wrong context, or try to camouflage themselves among editorial content, to give folks additional reasons to hate advertising. They already have enough. Let's not give them more.
Poll-type surveys of this nature often seem to show that people don't like online video ads or, for that matter, TV commercials in general. Indeed, no other outcome is possible when the questions are posed in a vague way. Not many people will come out in favor of commercials, least they seem to be idiots. The proof of the pudding, from an advertiser's point of view, is how consumers respond to specific commercials in specific program viewing situations. There is plenty of evidence that well designed commercials---and video ads---about products that are personally relevant to the audience, have stopping power and get their messages across.
so true Ed, underscoring the mystery of why anyone finds surveys like this newsworthy.
There is an important truth here that the online guys ignore: Somehow, online ads are far more frustrating than TV. Maybe we're just used to the pacing & timing of TV ads... Partly that's how they're executed - we generally know when to expect them, how long they'll last, etc.... But my college students (yes, fabled 18-24 yo demographic) clearly find online chaos far more offensive than TV ads. Think about how obnoxious and intrusive online work has become - dancing shapes, popups that are hard to get rid of, on HuffPost the top of the page dances up and down as the page struggles to load the ad then reduce it. What I have yet to hear online proponents accept is (a) consumers, when they're online, are on a far more focused mission than when watching TV which (b) means it's far harder to get their attention to an ad which (c) explains absurdly low cost of internet ads because they're highly ineffective and (d) means advertisers become extraordinarily obnoxious in trying to break consumers out of their mission to pay attention to their ads. What about the poll? The poll may be bunk. But the conclusion is what I see and hear constantly from people around me.
I agree withe Ed Papazian's ultimate point.
MediaPost needs more discipline when it comes to reporting and using online surveys.
Though the piece was labeled a "commentary," bad poll data makes for bad commentary, if not identified as such.
In this case, who knows the quality of the survey?
Hence, who should care?