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

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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 ad engagement are the lowest for unsophisticated targeting ad formats like TV ads
       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 formats drive in-app purchases amongst valuable user segments who are also accustomed to 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 to focus on bolstering engagement rather than reach to succeed with the lean-in 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