Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass - it’s about making your ads better

In a 2016 article in , Mark Ritson wrote, quoting KPMG, that “46% of people do not like advertising at all. 


“The only good ad for most consumers is the one they do not have to download,” he added in respect of ad blockers, also mentioning the practice of “zipping”, where consumers fast-forward past ads while viewing TV.


The piece is some years old, but the observations hold true: consumers don’t like ads the way they are currently being presented, and particularly those that slow down their experience. The key point in there is their experience - it isn’t the ads as such, it is the degraded browsing experience they create. 


When viewed through the lens of how we humans use our phones, particularly given our newly acquired thumb-dexterity, we all know you don’t have too long to get both content - and its sugar-daddy, advertising - in front of eyes


Couple this with data suggesting digital advertising spend will top c.US$700Bn this year, with the portion of budgets into display growing, and it is clear that what drives these negative experiences must be addressed or we will simply amplify them to the detriment of the industry. Projected budget splits:


I recently wrote about ROAS and the need, heading into 2023, for agencies and marketeers to find more performance and better outcomes within their current budgets - and, where constrictions are applied, how to get more from less.


Our industry has invested billions in its ability to ensure the right ad is seen by the right person at the right time - those words must appear on hundreds of pitch decks across adland. As many know, user- and data-targeting consumes a large portion of any media plan. In other words, we need to be better.


Meanwhile, there is stakeholder and shareholder pressure to embrace a more environmentally-attuned approach to delivering advertising with the proliferation of measurement companies.

As Gideon Spanier, UK editor-in-chief of Campaign, said, “it’s time for adland to go beyond talking the talk when it comes to environmental, social and governance issues” - indicating changes in behaviour need to follow changes in what people are saying, mostly on paid-for panels.


To summarise:


  • almost half of people don’t like any advertising, mostly because it degrades their browsing experience
  • most people skip ads when they can (that said, a lot of people don’t have to skip ads because they don’t load)
  • we are part of a $700bn industry and display is growing within that
  • the ad industry needs to see better returns from its ad spend
  • the advertising industry needs to walk the talk


A somewhat perfect storm, some might say - although, as Vivian Greene so wisely said, “life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain”.


What SeenThis cannot do is make people like advertising - that is beyond even our phenomenal product team’s capabilities. But what we can do is:


  • enable the delivery of truly high quality videos
  • provide products and tech which allow ads to load instantly, with no fast-thumbing or zipping to worry about
  • ensure that when a consumer scrolls, ads stop streaming
  • allow streamed video into display inventory to enable rethinking of what video is, where it can be deployed, and for what purposes
  • reduce the CO2 footprint of all campaigns that are streamed via SeenThis rather than downloaded


And as an industry we can:


  • Tailor pagination to the consumer and leverage more video to enable less but higher yielding ads per page
  • Use innovative technology - less can mean more when innovation is exercised
  • Stop compressing great creative output to fit down the programmatic pipes


Also published in: SeenThis

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