Thursday, November 15, 2012

Consumers and Marketers Disagree About Marketing

In October, Adobe performed a survey of both marketers and consumers regarding their respective perspectives on marketing effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the two groups disagree on several topics, but the details of their differences raise some questions.

The survey revealed that 51% of marketers prefer online ads to TV, while nearly two-thirds of internet users thing TV ads are more effective. What factors could be driving this disparity? First of all, people are spending more and more time on the internet, forcing marketers to shift much of their attention to online channels. Additionally, online ads provide a new suite of analytics (as we've studied in this class) that marketers love, that are harder to obtain through TV ads, especially around e-commerce and customer acquisition.

On the consumer side, TV ads are expected and sometimes even sought after (i.e. the Super Bowl), while online ads are often perceived as obtrusive and annoying. Interstitial video ads can be easily avoided by switching to another tab on the browser for a few moments, then returning to the content once the ad is over.

Many internet users often aren't even aware of when they are served ads, a fact that certainly doesn't mean online ads are less effective, but does alter their perception in response to the survey--you won't know if something is effective if you didn't notice it at all. This concept is reinforced by the data in the survey that says 7% of marketers think paid search ads are the "most effective", compared to just 3% of internet users. Internet users may be oblivious to many paid search ads, but the marketers are the ones with the data, and the effectiveness of paid search ads is one of the most direct statistics to track with digital analytics tools. I'd believe the marketers.

Full link: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009480&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

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