Two thirds of UK public think ads have become more intrusive, a third say they are more irritating

Kantar Millward Brown – 16 January 2018

Source The Drum

Three quarters of UK consumers believe they see more ads now than they did three years ago. Worsening this scenario, two thirds think ads are generally more intrusive than they used to be, an inevitable issue when brands experiment with big data and tracking.

Research from Kantar Millward Brown also found that one third of respondents found ads more irritating than they were three years ago. This paints a poor picture around the state of play in advertising - many consumers believe they are seeing more, intrusive and irritating ads.

In recent years, brands have pushed into delivering multimedia campaigns, however, only 27% of respondents said that these campaigns made them think of specific brands. A silver lining to this sorry state is that one third thought that brands are better at storytelling than they were three years ago.

It is worth pointing out that a consumer's perception of how an ad affected them may not be reflective of the reality. The study threw up an interesting cognitive dissonance between marketers and consumers who receive ads.

While 58% of marketers thought their targeted measures were somewhat or very effective, only 27% of consumers echoed this opinion. Most were likely to recall negative experiences around targeting.

Jane Ostler, managing director of media and digital at Kantar Millward Brown, said: “With consumers feeling overwhelmed by advertising from all angles, marketers must remember the basics. The creative approach should be adapted for different contexts, but shouldn’t stray too far from the core idea as brand impact and the effectiveness of the media investment will be compromised.

“Start with a strong campaign idea, use consistent brand cues and deliver tightly integrated executions. Like conducting a large orchestra, marketers need to work even harder now to ensure that everything works in harmony.”

Echoing this idea, globally, campaigns that leveraged a strong idea of call to action delivered better KPIs 64% of the time.

Read the full AdReaction report UK here.