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Ad fatigue negatively impacts viewers' purchasing decisions, with 61% of participants to a survey released this week saying they are less likely to want to buy products or use services from the company that shows the same ad back to back, and 49% said in the past they had decided not to purchase a product from a brand when they see repetitive ads too often.
Adults under 55, men, parents of children under 18 and adults with children in the household are significantly more likely than their respective counterparts to agree.
“Not only are consumers getting fatigued, but the investment could also be detrimental to what you’re trying to accomplish,” said AD-ID CEO Nada Bradbury. “I’m spending all this money to bring consumers to my product, but because someone isn’t controlling frequency like they should be, I may be turning people off from my product, brand or entire category.”
Bradbury wants advertisers to use media budgets wisely, pointing to findings from the AD-ID and The Harris Poll study released this week.
Data from the poll is from a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older. About 1,921 watch TV or view content on streaming. The study shows how ad fatigue negatively impacts viewers’ purchasing decisions.
The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) are the industry bodies that developed and support AD-ID.
When 59% of viewers cite seeing the same ads repeatedly, this leads to a negative impact on their viewing experience, with 50% saying they get annoyed and 26% saying that it has negatively impacted their purchasing decisions.
It’s not all bad news, but the data shows why advertisers need to pay attention to frequency capping to get through to consumers.
Three-quarters of consumers who view the ads say they would like to see ads targeted at their interests, with 33% saying they don't mind watching ads that are relevant to them.
Some 63% said they have purchased a product and/or service they were unaware of because of an ad they saw and 18% said targeted ads have aided in their purchasing decisions.
Bradbury said there is a point of diminishing return, but it varies by category and brand.
“That will be the next step -- knowing how many times is too many,” she said. “What I do know is seeing the same ad two or three times in a row is too many. You can’t keep showing the same ad and expect a positive response. They must be interspersed, and I think we are failing our clients if we can’t control that.”
Although streaming platforms command a dominating share of overall viewing time, TV share of advertising time still sits with broadcast and cable network platforms, according to Comscore.
In the second quarter of 2023, 87% of all ad time on TV was viewed on cable or broadcast -- with just 13.1% of TV advertising time going to streaming platforms.
Breaking this down, 43.7% went to broadcast and 43.3% was for cable TV networks.
In the first half of 2024, CBS, ABC, and NBC command the largest individual network/platform share of “ad voice” with 10.2%, 9.8%, and 9.4% shares, respectively.
Well behind these top broadcasters are Fox Television Network (5.3%), YouTube (4.6%), Fox News Channel (4.6%) and Hulu (4.6%).
By way of comparison, premium streaming viewing leader Netflix only has a 0.524% share. Amazon’s Prime Video is at a similar 0.548% share.
Both these operations’ efforts in the ad-supported arena are relatively new. Netflix started up two years ago, while Prime Video launched in January of this year.
Hulu commands the top ad-voice position among all streamers. Comscore notes that the Disney-owned streamer has had a much longer history in the premium streaming business than nearly all other competitors.
After the top seven platforms are MSNBC at 2.2%, followed by ESPN with 2.0%, CNN at 1.8%, The CW at 1.7% and ION with 1.5%.
Looking at other streaming businesses, after YouTube and Hulu are Tubi (1.4%), Pluto TV (0.745%), and Peacock (0.629%).
A look at total TV/streaming viewing -- both ad-free and ad-supported -- shows streaming platforms command a 41% share of total day persons age 2-plus viewing in August, according to Nielsen, compared to cable at 26.3% and broadcast at 22%.
The report, called The Score, comes from data of 29 million U.S. households -- which includes using smart TV ACR data (Automatic Content Recognition) from Inscape and Samba TV.
Comscore notes that broadcast includes data from both pay TV and broadcast stations. Streaming data does not include traditionally distributed TV platforms.
Toyota is featuring its family of trucks in a campaign that targets Hispanic consumers.
The effort from Hispanic AOR Conill is themed “Endurance is in our Heritage” and touches on the legacy of these trucks.
The 30-second Spanish language spot “Letters” debuted earlier this month and was joined by a 15-second English cutdown. A second spot will go live in December. Both will run through the end of Toyota’s fiscal year, which is March.
The focus is on showing that the family of trucks — Tundra, Tacoma and the 4Runner — stand for adventure and a heritage of endurance.
The campaign was developed with the insight that celebrates the indomitable spirit that drives both the strength of the trucks and the vibrant Latino community, says Veronica Elizondo, chief creative officer, Conill.
“This campaign is a heartfelt tribute to the resilience and determination that define the new generations of Latinos,” Elizondo tells Marketing Daily. “Just as their abuelos and abuelas journeyed here, overcoming obstacles with unwavering perseverance, Toyota trucks embody that same steadfast spirit.”
Directed by Tino Carmignani and produced by Canada Los Angeles, the creative aims to inspire viewers especially the new generation of youth by highlighting the strength ingrained in their heritage every time they drive a Toyota truck.
The spot integrates excerpts from letters written by the drivers’ grandparents who made the journey to this country and the challenges they endured to succeed. This same essence is what the driver feels when they get behind the wheel of their Tacoma, Tundra and 4Runner.
The social media portion of the campaign takes on the same message of inherited endurance conveyed through images and video. The images demonstrate the trucks in tough terrain juxtaposed with personal motivational quotes.
The second spot, “The Josés’ Expedition,” will feature three generations of José’s -- grandfather, father and son -- sharing a fun off-road adventure in their three Toyota trucks, embracing their resilience and the never-quit spirit resulting in engaging content tailored for TikTok, Meta and YouTube.
Here's Something you may want to share with your local-direct clients: Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.
Racing fans may not be able to rev their engines on an actual track in Heineken 0.0’s new mobile gaming experience, but they can win a chance to meet Oracle Red Bull Racing's 3x World Champion F1 driver Max Verstappen and play against fans around the world.
The non-alcoholic brew recently launched its global simulator racing platform, Player 0.0, to the U.S., after a successful three-year run across the globe.
The mobile game brings together both virtual and real worlds in a simulated racing competition, where players have the opportunity to “race” against some of the world’s best race car drivers. Yet speed isn’t the goal of the game; safe driving is. Players earn points for safety and avoiding obstacles, and their stint ends if they crash.
"We believe entertainment and community can influence safe driving and moderate drinking," said Heineken USA CMO Jonnie Cahill in a release. "We are bring(ing) the excitement of the Player 0.0 gaming platform to the States, to meet our customers where they are… and remind them the best driver is the one who is not drinking."
The now globally competitive game will award U.S. winners one through six with the chance to compete in the U.S. Finals this October, with the first-place winner of that game moving on to the Global Finals in Spain to compete against Player 0.0 drivers from around the world and meet Oracle Red Bull Racing's 3x World Champion F1 driver Max Verstappen.
The game can be accessed by visiting https://heineken.com/player00.
Player 0.0 is a part of Heineken’s “When You Drive, Never Drink” campaign, which “is addressing the issue of overconfidence when drinking alcohol by encouraging consumers to make the right choice to never drive if they've had anything to drink,” per the brand. The effort is being promoted via the brand’s Instagram and Facebook platforms.
BIA Advisory Services’ Rick Ducey: “You have to look more than quarter by quarter” to navigate a difficult year ahead.
Local TV stations are certainly in a period of change and challenge, but with some strategic thinking and planning, they can stay competitive in the local video marketplace, said Rick Ducey, managing director, BIA Advisory Services, at TVNewsCheck’s Local Television Strategies at the NAB Show New York on Wednesday.
This year saw the dual boon of political advertising and the Olympics, but things will fall back to earth in 2025, when core advertising revenue is predicted to be basically flat. And as advertising moves more and more to digital platforms, broadcasters need to be moving in that direction as well.
TV stations face competition in the local video space from powerful digital companies, with Facebook and Google taking half of all of the local advertising dollars in any given market, according to Ducey. Retail marketing networks — think Walmart or Kroger — are coming on strong with powerful first-party data platforms. Walmart this year bought smart TV company Vizio for $2.3 billion in order to merge its data with Vizio’s viewership data to create highly targeted consumer profiles for itself and third-party brand advertisers.
“All local advertising is a $174 billion business. Retail media and commerce is a $130 billion industry. Why didn’t we get some of that growth?” Ducey asked.
Retransmission consent fees are expected to decline over the next several years as people cut the cord and move away from traditional pay TV services. Those viewers frequently move to virtual MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) such as YouTubeTV or Hulu+LiveTV, and thus far the broadcast companies have maintained the right to handle negotiations with those providers, something broadcast ownership groups want to change.
Meanwhile, the media conglomerates that own broadcast networks are demanding a larger percentage of reverse compensation from station groups, while prioritizing their direct-to-consumer streaming services.
Even broadcasters’ core offering — local news — is being challenged, with Americans preferring to get their news on digital devices (58%) versus TV (32%). One quarter of American adults turn to news websites for their news, Pew reported in September. Overall, broadcast viewing makes up only 20% of total viewing, Ducey said, with viewing on streaming, gaming, digital and social platforms making up the rest.
The regulatory environment has not been favorable toward broadcasters recently. The FCC, led by chair Jessica Rosenworcel, is not interested in revising outdated broadcast regulations and it effectively quashed Standard Media’s proposed $8.6 billion acquisition of Tegna in 2023. The Biden administration in general has taken an anti-consolidation stance, personified by controversial FTC Chair Lina Khan. That said, DirecTV and Dish just announced their intention to merge without seeming to encounter opposition.
Finally, the local measurement problem still has not been solved, with broadcasters unable to provide advanced audience metrics against linear broadcasts. That’s becoming a bigger problem as advertisers demand outcome-based buying. Nielsen is rolling out its local Big Data product in January and broadcasters are hopeful that will help, but warn it will take at least a year to fully comprehend the data.
It’s not all doom and gloom, but it does require broadcasters to spend time rethinking the business model that’s served them until this period of extreme disruption, Ducey said.
“There needs to be a strategic reframing of what it means to be in the local TV business,” he added. “As the multiplatform video market continues to morph and evolve, local TV must keep pace with competitors by tapping innovations in technology, data, business models, audience and ad trends.”
Broadcasters have six potential revenue streams: broadcast advertising; digital advertising; retransmission consent fees; connected TV and over-the-top TV (CTV/OTT) channels and apps; NextGen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0); and datacasting, Ducey said. While broadcast advertising and retransmission consent both are declining, there are growth opportunities in the other revenue streams, he noted.
But even those revenue streams face obstacles.
Some 10% of broadcasters’ total revenue currently comes from digital and streaming options, with advertising on linear services still making up the lions’ share of broadcast advertising revenue. The supply of digital and streaming advertising inventory is plentiful, which serves to keep pricing down. That situation was made worse when subscription-based streamers like Netflix and Prime Video opened their platforms to advertising, flooding the market with inventory.
“You know you are underperforming in digital,” Ducey said. “You should be making twice as much money in digital as you are now.”
NextGen TV is on track to be rolled out in 80% of the country, but it requires consumers to adopt it by using digital antennas and acquiring smart TVs with ATSC 3.0 tuners. Since most consumers don’t even know NextGen TV exists, it’s a heavy lift to get them to take the necessary steps to start using it. Moreover, broadcasters received no new bandwidth to help them roll out NextGen TV, and ATSC 1.0 remains in place.
Ducey had some suggestions for broadcasters to pursue, including partnering with retail media networks on cross-platform advertising buys, something broadcasters should be offering as broadly as possible. He also suggested offering self-serve programmatic advertising on CTV and OTV platforms to local buyers, such as small and medium-size businesses. With their own streaming products, broadcasters should be acquiring their own valuable first-party data on which they can build better advertising networks. And ATSC 3.0 means that datacasting could become a real offering for broadcasters
“It all comes back to those six revenue streams,” Ducey said. “We have to allocate resources in a meaningful way. If you are planning big businesses, you have to look more than quarter by quarter.
Large social media companies and streaming video services threaten consumers' privacy by collecting a “staggering” amount of data in order to serve behaviorally targeted ads, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday in a new staff report.
“The status quo is unacceptable,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau wrote in a preface to a critical new report, “A Look Behind the Screens: Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services.”
“The report leaves no doubt that without significant action, the commercial surveillance ecosystem will only get worse,” Levine added. “Our privacy cannot be the price we pay to accomplish ordinary basic daily activities, and responsible data practices should not put a business at a competitive disadvantage.”
FTC Chair Lina Khan added that the report shows how tech companies “harvest an enormous amount of Americans’ personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year.”
“While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking,” Khan stated.
The report, unanimously approved Thursday by the FTC, grew out of an investigation launched in December 2020, when the agency sought detailed information from Meta, Amazon, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Discord, Reddit and Snap about their data gathering and ad targeting practices.
The amount of data the companies collect is “simply staggering,” Levine wrote.
“They track what we read, what websites we visit, whether we are married and have children, our educational level and income bracket, our location, our purchasing habits, our personal interests, and in some cases even our health conditions and religious faith,” Levine continued.
He added that the companies amassed so much information that they often couldn't answer questions about all the “data points” that were collected, or the third parties that received the information.
The report recommends both that Congress enact new privacy laws, and that tech companies minimize the amount of data they collect and share.
"Self-regulation is not the answer and federal legislation is necessary to ensure that the companies protect consumers’ privacy," the report states.
The FTC said legislation should include “default safeguards against the over-collection, monetization, disclosure, or undue retention of personal data."
“Users should be able to proactively choose whether they do or do not wish to be tracked, and they should be able to make this choice freely, rather than under conditions that restrict their autonomy,” the FTC added.
The ad industry's current self-regulatory standards generally call for companies to notify people about the collection of cross-site data, and allow them to opt out of receiving behaviorally targeted ads. (The standards also call for companies to obtain consumers' explicit consent to the collection of certain sensitive data.)
In addition to calls for legislation, the report also urges social and streaming platforms to avoid using “privacy-invasive tracking technologies” like pixels to collect sensitive information from consumers. The report doesn't define all types of “sensitive” information, but suggests the term includes demographic categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and political affiliation.
Khan specifically singled out online behavioral advertising as the driving force behind current practices.
“Marketers have always sought to reach their desired audience, but digitization enabled an unprecedented degree of behavioral targeting,” she stated Thursday. “This newfound ability to monetize people’s behavior, activity, and characteristics helped drive the creation of a multi-billion dollar industry specializing in tracking and collecting vast amounts of Americans’ personal data.”
The report itself asserts that targeted advertising “can pose serious privacy risks to consumers.”
“Consumers are frequently unaware of the potential downstream uses -- including the sale to third parties of location data that may be used to identify consumers and their visits to sensitive locations, such as houses of worship and doctors’ offices -- of the immense amounts of data collected about them,” the report states.
The authors add that targeting based on “sensitive categories” of data “can be extremely harmful to consumers and cause a wide range of injuries to users” -- including discrimination, embarrassment and harms to reputations.
“Targeted ads based on knowledge about protected categories can be especially distressing,” the report says. “One example is when someone has not disclosed their sexual orientation publicly, but an ad assumes their sexual orientation.”
The report also found that most social platforms and streaming services collected the same types of data from teens as from users over 17.
FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, though he approved the report, took issue with its criticism of targeted advertising.
“I do not share the report’s apparent view that the display of targeted advertising to adults is, on balance, harmful,” he stated Thursday, adding that targeted advertising to children and teens “is another matter entirely.”
Association of National Advertisers' CEO Bob Liodice criticized the report as “sensationalist.”
"Rather than simply throwing out the baby with the bathwater, this FTC report decides to tear down the entire house with a sensationalist report that claims that the theoretical harms of data use outweigh all the staggering benefits of the digital economy to individuals and businesses,” he stated.
"Interest-based advertising is the economic engine that funds free and low-cost services to millions of Americans through the digital apps, online services, news publishers, and websites they love.” Liodice added.
Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO David Cohen stated that the organization was “disappointed with the FTC’s continued characterization of the digital advertising industry as engaged in ‘mass commercial surveillance.'”
He added that the organization supports a national data privacy law.
“Congress, rather than a federal agency, should balance consumers' privacy rights, competition and the value exchange between consumers and publishers,” he stated.
Lou Mastria, CEO and president of the self-regulatory group Digital Advertising Alliance, responded to the report by touting the industry's AdChoices program, which uses a clickable icon to notify consumers about online behavioral advertising and take them to sites that offer opt-out links.
He stated that self-regulatory initiatives like AdChoices "have provided ubiquitous real-time access to information and choices around interest-based advertising across millions of web pages and billions of ads."
The advocacy group Consumer Reports, which has supported strong state privacy laws, called the FTC's findings “alarming but not surprising.”
“We need to rein in the rampant overcollection and misuse of consumer data by making strong data minimization protections the default and ensuring companies are held accountable when they violate the trust of consumers,” Justin Brookman, the organization's director of technology policy, stated Thursday.
