Study Reveals Online Marketing is Falling Short with Consumers
Consumer Attitudes
October 24, 2012 -- Digital marketing is not meeting the needs of American consumers, according to new research released from Adobe and research firm Edelman Berland.
The study, Click Here: The State of Online Advertising provides insights into the beliefs of both consumers and professional marketers. Interestingly, both consumers and professional marketers believe that traditional marketing is still more effective than online marketing.
Key Findings:
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Respondents say the most preferred place to view an ad is while looking through a favorite print magazine; Digital ads scored only in the single digits.
Q. Where do you prefer to look at an ad?
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Favorite print magazine – 45%
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Favorite TV show – 34%
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Favorite website – 11%
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Billboard – 10%
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Window display – 6%
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Social media – 3%
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Favorite digital magazine – 2%
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Apps – 0%
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Traditional media is considered the best for marketing and advertising; Marketers overvalue digital advertising compared to consumer opinion.
Source: Adobe, Click Here: The State of Online Advertising, October 2012
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Consumers rank online ads as annoying (71%), distracting (51%), all over the place (46%) and invasive (38%). Comparatively, only 47% of marketers believe online ads to be annoying.
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Social media “likes” from friends get 29% to “check out” a product, but “likes” doesn’t translate to sales – only 2% say they result in a product purchase.
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Ninety-four percent of consumers and 98% of marketers agree that marketing drives sales; With this said, 53% of consumers believe “marketing is a bunch of B.S.”
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The top 5 agreed upon statements from consumers:
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Advertisements should tell a unique story, not just try to sell – 73%
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A video is worth 1,000 words – 67%
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User product reviews are the best source of truth – 67%
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In-store experiences trump online experiences – 67%
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Television commercials are more effective than online ads – 66%
About: The online study was commissioned by Adobe and produced by research firm Edelman Berland. It was conducted October 8-16, 2012 as an online survey among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults, 18 years or older, and 250 professional U.S. marketers. The margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ± 3% for consumers and ± 6% for marketers.
Source: Adobe, U.S. Study Reveals Online Marketing is Failing with Consumers, October 24, 2012.