When Ads get too Intrusive and Obnoxious
Marketing and advertising exist as a professions because someone has to promote the right products and services to the right people. When done right, marketing/advertising can bring the right amount of awareness to businesses and events both large and small. But when I hear about players in the NBA selling ad space on their jerseys and Sony Entertainment creating a 90-minute advertisement for theatres, it does make me ask an important question. “When is it enough?”
According to the latest 2o18 polls, people are starting to get burnt out on the insanity of advertising. Out of a group census on Hubspot, 87% of
people say there are more ads than two years ago. What’s more this frustration is killing the reputation of businesses as well as marketers and advertisers. 72% of consumers say they would have a lower opinion of a brand if they subjected the consumer to a pop-up ad and 81% of consumers have closed a browser or exited a webpage because of a pop-up ad.
So, if the way we are advertising now is hurting us and our clients more than it is helping, what changes can we make to reduce ad fatigue to our audiences?
The short answer is to just change our advertising habits.
The Problem with Intrusive Advertisement
There is more than meets the eye with ad complaints if you dig a little deeper into the issue. When researching how people felt about ads, I came across this interesting statistic. “77% of consumers agree that they would prefer to ad filter than completely ad block. ” This statistic speaks a lot more about the reality of their frustration more than I realized. People are fine with the idea of advertising. They have accepted it as a part of their daily lives. Their problem isn’t with advertising in general. Their problem is with the intrusive nature of online advertising.
And it makes perfect sense.
If you were minding your own business, sitting in a doctor’s office the last thing you would want to deal with is a door to door salesman bursting into the room and interrupting the quiet atmosphere with a loud pitch. It is obnoxious, annoying, and counterproductive to the person trying to sell their product in the first place. That is the reason that businesses post signs all over the place that state “no solicitation”.
So, if interrupting someone at an inconvenient time is considered a sales faux pas, then why don’t we expect the same behavior from online advertising?
Would you be willing to listen to someone weigh in on a conversation if they were interrupting with no idea of what you were talking about? Of course not. You would be annoyed, confused, and a little angry that you were interrupted. That is the feeling that customers are getting with pop-ups and autoplaying videos.
Now that we know where the problem lies, what can we do to fix it?
Advertisements that Work
Vieodesign said it best, “Successful digital ads don’t overtly disrupt the consumer’s browsing experience in an intrusive or annoying way. They make sense in the content and location where they’re placed, look professional, are easy to understand and use. They are well targeted to the consumer, so they’re relevant and speak the consumer’s language. They’re clear about what’s being offered, so people don’t feel tricked.”
We have to be honest about the product and service we are selling, our intentions as advertisers, and we have to be relevant to the people we are adverting to.
Customers need to feel like they have a choice in what they are consuming, and they need to feel at ease with what we are offering as well as how we are offering it.