Consumers Are Fed Up with Corporate Advertising & Manipulation
Today, the New York Times reports on a new poll showing that a majority
of Americans are fed up with the hailstorm of advertising we all
suffer through. According to theYankelovich Partners poll:
* 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded with
too much" advertising; * 61 percent agreed that the amount of advertising
and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of control"; * 60 percent
said their opinion of advertising "is much more negative than just a few
years ago"; * 54 percent of the survey respondents said they "avoid buying
products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing";* 69 percent
said they "are interested in products and services that would help them skip
or block marketing;"
The Times story is below.
As the kingpins of Madison Avenue gather for a major annual meeting,
there is further evidence of the growing challenge they confront in seeking
to break through the cacophony of advertising that surrounds - and
increasingly annoys - consumers.
At the 2004 management conference of the American Association of
Advertising Agencies, which begins today in Miami, senior executives will
learn the results of a survey of consumers conducted on behalf of the
organization by Yankelovich Partners, the market research company. The
survey, to be presented tomorrow at the opening general session of the
conference, shows that the effectiveness of campaigns that agencies produce
for marketers is deteriorating, said J. Walker Smith, president at
Yankelovich, because
The survey findings are significant because industry executives
are frantically searching for ways to forge more emotional connections
with fractious, and fractionated, consumers that differ from conventional
methods like running 30-second television commercials and print
advertisements.
The risk posed by some of the new approaches, like placing sponsored
brand messages or products in the entertainment content of programs
or publications, is that consumers will consider such selling strategies
even more obnoxious.
"People have a love-hate relationship with advertising," said Mr. Smith,
who offered a preview of the survey in an interview before the conference
began. "But a far greater percentage are saying they have concerns,
primarily related to its growing obtrusiveness."
For instance, Mr. Smith said, 54 percent of the survey respondents said
they "avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and
marketing"; 60 percent said their opinion of advertising "is much more
negative than just a few years ago"; 61 percent said they agreed that the
amount of advertising and marketing to which they are exposed "is out of
control."
Also, 65 percent said they believed that they "are constantly bombarded
with too much" advertising; and 69 percent said they "are interested in
products and services that would help them skip or block marketing."
How to market an antimarketing product to people surfeited with
marketing? Ah, there's the rub.
Even when fewer than a majority of the survey respondents agreed with
a statement, Mr. Smith said, the results offered little solace for
agencies. For example, what he called a "fairly significant" 45 percent of
respondents said the amount of advertising and marketing they were exposed to
"detracts from the experience of everyday life," while 33 percent said they
"would be willing to have a slightly lower standard of living to live in a
society without marketing and advertising."
The results also offer some suggestions, Mr. Smith said, to help narrow
what he described as "the growing gap between how consumers want to
be communicated with and the way advertisers communicate with them."
For example, respondents said "there's an opportunity for advertising to
become a source of competitive advantage for a brand," Mr. Smith said, "if
it's focused on product features and services." "The marketing itself has
become part of how consumers view a brand," Mr. Smith said, "so if you have
two brands at parity with each other, more and more the one people are likely
to do business with is the one that does a better job in reaching them with
its advertising."
The association, which represents 1,196 agencies that place an estimated
75 percent of all national advertising, recognizes it must address
the consumers' changing attitudes, if some other topics on the conference
agenda are any indication.
Among the subjects to be discussed at the conference, which
continues through Friday at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach hotel, are
"advertising in the age of obesity," the title of a speech by Tommy G.
Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, and how agencies can
develop more effective campaigns, to be covered by August A. Busch IV,
president of Anheuser-Busch.
Other topics are how agencies can create campaigns consumers will like
more, or at least dislike less, to be discussed by Linda Kaplan Thaler,
chief executive and chief creative officer at the Kaplan Thaler Group in New
York, part of the Publicis Groupe, and how perceptions of the agency business
need to be improved, to be addressed by Ron Berger, elected last month as
the chairman of the association for 2004-6.
"Our industry must do a better job of talking about the tremendous value
we create for clients and the economy," said Mr. Berger, who is also
chief executive and chief creative officer at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners in
New York, part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.
Although "the last few years for the industry have not been great
ones," said Mr. Berger, who offered a preview of his remarks in a recent
interview, "I just don't think other industries beat themselves up the way we
do."
Even if, as has been widely discussed, the traditional 30-second spot
has devolved into a much less effective way to sell goods and services,
Mr.
Berger said, "so what?"
"The great agencies don't say, The 30-second commercial is dead, so
we're dead. They understand that, and embrace that, and will reinvent
themselves and what they do to market brands and products."
"The idea that TiVo, remote controls, any technology, is fatal to
our business I find absurd," he said. "The opportunities of technology and
what it enables us to do are more exciting than at any time in our
history."
Mr. Berger's enthusiasm may be contagious, if judged by the
advance registration for the conference, typically a good gauge of how
optimistic or pessimistic agency executives are about prospects for the
industry.
Almost 330 people have registered ahead of the conference, said O.
Burtch Drake, president and chief executive of the association, known as the
Four A's, compared with the 257 who attended the 2003 conference and the 293
at the 2002 conference.
Although the anticipated attendance is lower than for the boom year of
2000, when 450 people attended, Mr. Drake said, "we're going to have the
largest member attendance since 1990," which is attendees minus
speakers, representatives of media companies and other organizations like
the Association of National Advertisers, spouses and reporters.
"I'm feeling really good about the meeting," Mr. Drake said, "finally."
