Confessions of an Ad Avoider

The dynamic trio of Microsoft, Starcom, and Milward Brown have conducted a study which unveiled a new villain in the movie of online advertising: the Ad Avoider. Mike Shields of Mediaweek reports that between 10 percent and 15 percent of adults 17-35 fall into this category.

The active avoiders are young, they’re tech-savvy, and they have a DVR to cut out the unwanted content. The passive avoiders go a simpler route – they tend to use media that is untouched by ads, like books or board games. Well, I don’t have a DVR, and I haven’t played a board game since it became uncouth to cheat at Chutes and Ladders, but let me tell you something. The Ad Avoider? It’s me.

I’m the one who “can’t be bothered with ads.” I find them “annoying.” No, worse than just annoying; I think that advertising is evil and that whole industry should be banished down to the eighth circle of hell to play with the other falsifiers.

This may sound extreme, not to mention hypocritical. But the point I’m trying to make is that even the people who declare themselves the least likely to be affected by media are still consumers, and they still have eyes and ears and fingers and toes. (We hope.) Just because I am an Ad Avoider doesn’t mean I don’t know that pork is the other white meat, that barbie is a babe, and that smoking cigarettes will make me cool. (Too cool for school, in fact.) It doesn’t stop me from buying products and services that I see advertised in the Right Column or that coveted Shaded Row when I do Google searches, and it certainly does not keep me from engaging in modern media.

What it does do is make me more selective about what I pay attention to, and in this sense, I am an advertiser’s dream. Beth Uyenco Shatto, research director of Microsoft, reacted to the study by saying, “This is the kind of stuff that keeps us up at night.” But honey, this should be the kind of thing that makes you sleep like a Ambien-filled baby – after a few glasses of wine. Don’t stress out about the fact that I don’t like you. Use it to fuel your creative juices. You should wake up in the morning and think, how am I going to get Ana to buy my product today? Answer: my making it more customized, more relevant, and more interactive. (She already kind of said this; I'm just taking credit for it.)

 

Greg Sterling had a really interesting post on the subject. He said that in order to work through this issue of ad avoidance, we have to change our focus and

Reach the right audiences when they’re ready through directional media/targeting
Produce quality content: the “product” must work or deliver as promised
Offer usability: accessing the information/product must be simple and effective

and finally, the most critical point:

Take advantage of the recent rise of community and social media: the community, especially trusted circles, filters noise but also creates, in some circumstances, “social pressure” around adoption or product use.

It’s easier to get my attention if you’ve got the attention of or “sold” someone I trust. People are using each other as filters for efficiency but also to cut through the noise and clutter of all the marketing messages — which have less and less credibility.

As my ESL students used to say, “I am agree in a way that is total.”
Ad avoiders like myself are a strange breed, but we’re not aliens. Come get me!

P.S. In an effort to see what else was out there in terms of confessions, I did a search and found some interesting results. Confessions of a… Community College Dean, a Hockey Fanatic (aka Bruce Carlisle?), and a Cardamom Addict. I also found some more savory results here.