Advertise (pause). Advertise again. Repeat.

I never watch T.V.

 

and I get the feeling people have a certain tolerance when it comes to live T.V. For this to make sense let me add a little pretense. Monday I was watching a football game, which is about 4 hours long. As much as I like watching football I just couldn’t stop getting annoyed at commercials. I was thinking…”What’s wrong with me?”. I have a marketing degree, I’m supposed to love and be interested in commercials. Then something dawned on me, it’s not the commercials themselves, it’s the repetition. Now, as a rarely watch T.V. I was shocked about how many times the same commercial would be played. Now I understand the reason behind the repetition, some users flip around during commercials and might miss the targeted ad. The more times you throw that ad out there, the higher chance you have of reaching those users. Sometimes repetition works along with the with the company/agency strategy. Throw in a catchy jingle or a recurring storyline and you have the user hooked. They’ll be whistling your jingle all day, or they might visit your website to “continue the story”. But ask yourself a question, “Did you really capture them?” If I have a jingle stuck in my head it’ll go right out the door when I start jamming in my car. Now, “Same Old Love” by Selena Gomez is stuck in my head.

(look at that 50 million views)

Now that doesn’t mean I’m going to go grab her new album. I could go to your website and play around, but I might get bored and go look at pictures of cats. I know that companies/agencies have done their research and they know what they’re talking about but it still gives me a funny feeling. I don’t deny that this tactic works for some consumers, I’m simply saying that it’s annoying. Annoyance is an interesting subject when it comes to advertising, it’s a slippery slope. Repetition in advertising is never going to go away, pun intended. Companies and agencies aren’t perfect. They can’t guarantee that each user will see each ad once, and frankly they don’t care. The more you see the ad, the more the message has a chance of sticking. Back to the slippery slope. Nobody likes to be annoyed.

I’d rather watch this

What happens if a fly is buzzing around your face? You take a swipe at it. What happens if you see a commercial over and over? You forget about the product or message and think about how annoying it is. At this point the strategy the company/agency started out with is now the thing that ruined their chance of doing what they set out to do, sell a product.

 

This is a serious concern for sellers. In today’s world, it’s getting harder and harder to get commercials out there. Do you know why?

Cause people find them annoying.

I’m one of many millions of users of Netflix, which is ad free. Millions of people have Hulu Plus, which is now commercial free.

 

I’ll definitely pay the extra $4 for No Commercials

 

Many internet users use AdBlock, which even works on Youtube ads. It’s safe to say that we have a lot of ways to avoid ads.

 

Advertising is at a crossroad. What’s the solution?

Content.

You need an ad that makes people pause their live T.V. to show someone else. You need an ad that get over 500,000 views on Youtube. You need an ad that gets people to ask other people if they’ve seen it.

I know what you’re thinking. “It’s easier said than done”. To that, I’d say if sales or market share don’t increase due to your ad campaign then you haven’t done your job. So stop making excuses and do it. Give me and every other consumer a reason to enjoy watching live TV.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Netflix.

-N