Editorial Articles

Brands are embracing digital marketing in increasing numbers with increasing amounts of spend. Consumers are spending more and more time engaging with digital media, and in many different ways. However many of the advertisers that we speak to feel that they either aren’t ‘doing’ digital as well as other advertisers or that it is something they are not quite set up to deal with.

So it's no surprise that consumers aren’t feeling particularly favourable about our online advertising efforts so far. Only 17% of internet users define online advertising as impactful and appealing, and more internet users define online ads as intrusive, repetitive, unappealing and cheap.

Putting this into context, you would be hard pushed to find large proportions of consumers who are outwardly positive about advertising in any media, but where digital is concerned, there should be no room for complacency.

The good news is that younger consumers are far more positive about online advertising. 16-34s are 24% more likely to think that online ads are impactful and appealing, and 44% more likely to think they are relevant. This group of users were perhaps spared the highly interruptive and poorly targeted ads of the early days of the internet, indicating that what we are doing now gets a far more encouraging response from our consumers.

The over 55s on the other hand are a far more sensitive group to appeal to. Half actively avoid environments where they deem advertising to interrupt their use of the internet. But 38% of internet users in general also feel this way, which shoots a warning shot at publishers to ensure their commercial balance between content and advertising fits their users’ needs and usage of the site.

Digital is a medium like no other. It is uniquely personal and engaging, meaning that any trade off between content and advertising is far more fragile. So not only do we need to appeal more positively in advertising terms to our digital consumers, we also have an unprecedented opportunity to engage with them in a way no other medium can, and perhaps change their relationship with advertising completely.

The starting point for advertisers is not deciding what digital tools and vehicles to jump on the bandwagon of, but getting reacquainted with their consumers and understanding their lives as they live it in the digital age. Consumers have their own digital identities that are highly personalised based on their own lifestage, needs and interests. Advertisers need to understand their target audience, their online behaviour, mindset and attitude to advertising in order to deliver impactful online communications in the right way.

So how does this relate to digital media’s current big thing – social media? Advertisers are concerned about the role social media should play in their marketing communications strategies. Our research indicated that high investment in social media might not be right for all advertisers.

Obviously social media strategies go beyond hosting a Facebook page, but this can often be the core to resource investment. Just under half of consumers using social media said they would not follow a product or brand on a social media site. Entertainment, film and music brands were the most popular category to follow, but least popular was motoring, electrical, household, financial and pharmaceutical brands – a significant proportion of advertising spend.

Younger social media users were more open to following products and brands, and more likely to cite more categories overall. Careful consideration needs to be given to the type of audience advertisers want to communicate to, as well as the product category.

These headline figures do only tell part of the story when it comes to understanding consumers’ response to advertising online. However they should encourage us to not be complacent, to understand the digital lives of our consumers, and create communications appropriate for this unique medium and its users.

Helen Gawor
Director, Connect Insight