We haven’t had a screed in a while in which I point out the on-going silliness of many of us in marketing, so let’s start the week with one! There was an article in the eMarketer newsletter about a recent study. I’m just going to quote it directly:
In an August 2018 survey of 103 ad agencies, publishers and marketers in North America conducted by Pressboard, 27.2% of respondents said they use an ad blocker to block ads on the websites they visit. These figures are similar to those found in the general population. According to eMarketer forecasts, 25.2% of US internet users will use an ad blocker in 2018.
Pressboard’s research showed that advertising professionals are more likely to rely on their friends than on ads when they decide whether or not to purchase a product. Nearly eight in 10 respondents (78.6%) said that word-of-mouth from friends influenced their recent purchase decision. Just fewer than 16% of those surveyed reported making a purchase after being influenced by banner ads.
I hope you can see immediately why this precipitated my response. It’s might be easy to shrug this off. I mean, what does it really say? Marketing and advertising professionals are humans too? How is that a surprise? Well, it’s not, but it does point out a fundamental problem. Apparently, when they put on their business hats and get to work they forget how they feel as consumers. After all, if they react badly to banner ads and rely more on word of mouth, why do they persist in figuring out how to invade the consumer’s website use in as many ways as possible? They use ad blockers because, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan, in their hearts, they know it’s right. The state of web marketing is akin to that of an Arabian bazaar or a NASCAR driver. Ad blockers at least make the web tolerable.
The message to any of us is that we’re customers too. We need to think like customers and not as marketers when we’re figuring out the best ways to interact with our audiences. How can we solve their problems? How can we deliver information that’s useful to them and not just scream at them? Keep that in mind and not only will your customers be better off, but you will be as well. Make sense?
Consult Keith 