Commentary
The Fallout From Repetitive Ads Is Worse Than You Think
- by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, July 21, 2023
Results of a new ad effectiveness test underscore just how damaging repetitive ads on streaming services are to both brands and streaming platforms.
Fully 87% of 1,246 weekly streaming viewers participating in the controlled test, conducted by Magna Media Trials and ad-tech platform Nexxen, agreed that they see too many …
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Karlene Lukovitz is editor of MediaPost's "Digital News Daily" and writes the weekly "Video Insider" and "Advanced TV Insider" columns. You can reach her at karlene@mediapost.com.
All of which raises some qquestions. First and foremost what percentage of CTV AVOD/FAST viweing features the "bad" situation depicted--- same commercial repeated six times during an hour of viewing? Is this the norm for CTV ad exposures---like it happens 75% or more of the time ---or is it much less typical---like it happens 5-10% of the time.
Another question concerns the design of the study. Were the respondents asked specifically to watch the ad messages knowing that they would be asked questions about them later---which would create an unusualy high level of attentiveness---hence the negative reaction? Or did they watch the content in a normal way, in which case, many of the viewers would have left the room or paid no attention to the commercials no matter how often they were repeated?
Finally, there are other TV situations where commercials are repeated excessively---for example many live sports attractions. Is there any evidence that this causes a negative response by such audiences---or do they mostly ignore the repetitive commercials?
I'm not saying that excessive presentations of a brand's commercials are good thing, but we need some context in real world situations to help us in evaluating "the problem" and finding ways to cure it.
This is a great write up on an important research study. Part of the problem is that ad sellers are unable to fulfill orders for impressions against target audiences without creating high frequencies in certain shows / content. Moreover, they're not willing to turn the business away. This research does a good job of laying out the damaging effect for brands.
Even though this study doesn't reveal everything in terms of ad saturation and negative branding as Ed Papazian points out, these are viable data points that shouldn't be ignored in favor of waiting for something "better." Back in the day, Versus Network (before it became NBC Sports Network) showed the same freakin Lincoln Navigator ad EVERY SINGLE COMMERCIAL BREAK during each of the 21 stages of their live/replay coverage of the Tour de France (gran tour stages average ~4 hours). Yeah, I would never look at that vehicle and more than a decade has transpired. Today, it's not uncommon for Hulu to serve up the same 15-second spot three times in a row (i.e., back-to-back). Needless-to-say, Liberty Mutual will *never* be my choice for insurance. Frankly, there's no excuse for an IP-based delivery system to do this. It's just plain laziness and greed at the expense of viewers and brands alike.
When an advertiser buys time on old fashioned "linear TV" how ads are scheduled follows accepted rules that both sellers and buyers understand and agree to. In most cases it's the sellers, not the buyers who handle the placement of the ad messages---often rotating them in commercial breaks with those of other advertisers. And exceptions aside---you almost never see the same commercial three let alone six times in the same one hour show. If that were to happen it would not be tolertated as such practices are understood by buyers and sellers to be unacceptable. Once alerted, the advertiser's agency would be able to flag such unwanted frequency pile-ups as there are sources which monitor commercial placements--and the seller probably would not get paid for the redundant scheduling or, failing that, would be negotiated down to a much lower CPM for the spots in question. If the offense was repeated, the seller might not get another schedule from that advertiser for a long time---maybe never.
The same point applies to radio, magazines and newspapers. But not to CTV it seems. Here we are told that it's the agency's job or the advertiser's responsibility to see to it that such things don't happen---not the sellers. Are the sellers doing the advertiesers a favor by taking their money for ad schedules---hence this is not their problem? Does that sound right to anyone?
Ed: Spot on as always. Absolutely not right of course. However, those agencies that accept the deceit of buying impressions that are merely content-rendered-counts wherever they land on the media vehicle's schedule on whatever screen (aka so called per MRC "viewable impressions") from the sellers to secure low CPMs (that have little real value!) perhaps get what they deserve.
True independent ad verfication systems would, in real time, reveal whether the right creative ran per the complete agency specifictions including reach & frequency based on real exposure against the target group. Industry insider reports indicate the "play requirements" are often not fulfilled via programmatic buys contributing to unaccaptable frequency in its many dimensions. This is surely further evidence of the many problems with media ad spot computerized auctions, i.e., programmatic executions, that are not fully verified on every ad/brand specification requirement which are typically demanded and rigorously checked on direct buys.
The audiences per streaming platform are too small compared to linear, so you have to over frequency and why CTV is basically your 3 or 4th best option
This problem also pertains to online ads. What makes both online and television bad is the advertisers have to the right to block their ads by categories first then by demographic or geoggraphic. Thereby, a few quality ads go to a small number channels or net venues. The worse I have seen on the net is sex toys and though I have them blocked by category, the ad distributor forces the ad on my site.