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On-Demand Ads Why Ads Sought Are Better Than Ads Served

Georgia Meyer
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The 20,000 Foot View: In the peak attention economy, audiences have little patience for poorly targeted ads, resulting in engagement with TV ads at crisis-level lows. Lean-in audiences, who exert the most control over their content consumption, are the least tolerant of unsolicited ads. Ad distribution channels with better targeting, like YouTube, have better audience engagement rates — but only marginally. Audiences switching off from traditional served ads and channels are exploring new inventory within Instagram stories – precipitating the creation of a social e-commerce ecosystem. They actively seek out messaging from brands in formats of their choosing, via branded social media pages. This posits a notion of ‘ads on-demand’: successful future brand-to-consumer messaging characterised by audience-led targeting, as opposed to advertiser or platform-determined targeting.

Key Findings

  • Rates of            engagement are the lowest for            targeting ad formats like TV           
    •            of pay-TV viewers,            of podcast listeners,            of YouTube video viewers and            of linear (free-to-air) TV viewers stop paying attention to TV when the ads come on            of YouTube video viewers skip ads on YouTube            of linear TV viewers,            of pay-TV viewers and            of podcast listeners do not skip relevant YouTube ads; suggesting this is not a crisis of advertising as a whole            of podcast listeners and            of YouTube viewers engage with Instagram stories
  • Social ad            drive in-app purchases amongst valuable            segments who are also accustomed            spending money in digital contexts
    •            of podcast listeners and            of pay-TV viewers pay to download apps and pay for in-app purchases 
  • Advertisers need            focus on bolstering engagement rather            reach to succeed with the            generation

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, Apple, Apple News, AT&T, Audioboom, DoubleClick, Google, IMDB, Instagram, Media Ratings Council, Spotify, Triton Digital, Webcast Metrics Platform, Xandr Media, YouTube