How brands annoy fans

A new report by the CMO Council, titled ‘How Brands Annoy Fans: The Impact of Digital Advertising Experiences on Consumer Perceptions and Purchase Intent’ has some rather remarkable findings, of interest to advertising and marketing agencies, brand managers and digital agencies.

Bias and fakery

• 75% of consumers are worried about fake or biased news
• 60% say it is causing them to consume more content from trusted sources and channels
• Social media is the least trusted source of information among the top five media types

The effect of ad placement on consumer intent

• 64% of consumers respond better to ads delivered from a trusted news site than those that appear on social media or search
• If ads are near to objectional content, 37% say it changes how they think of the brand, and 11% say they will boycott the brand
• 88% say a negative advertising experience may make them think differently about the brand

The most negative advertising experiences

• From a list of such negative experiences as ads with discriminatory, hateful, racist or stereotyping aspects, they rate intrusive ads as the worst of all
• Consumers are clearly underwhelmed by advertising generally. 43% said that brand advertising detracts from their enjoyment of the content they consume online

Digital annoyance

When asked what bothers them the most about the way brands are marketed in digital media channels, the top two responses were:

Brand marketing annoyance

When asked what bothers them most about the way brands are marketed, the top response was false, misleading or phony advertising.

Television is still the top channel for advertising messages, but it's a close call:

Concerned consumers

And finally, almost a third of consumers were extremely concerned about how easy it is to find offensive, hateful and objectional content, including click-bait sites and fake news:

Source

The survey was taken of 2000 consumers in North America and the UK, conducted by the CMO Council in partnership with Dow Jones. The full report is available here.