From hamlets to big cities, ads face the heat

More people are now avoiding commercials than ever before

Are you someone who mutes the TV the moment the ad breaks come in, or leave your couch to feed your pet, or simply flip through other channels? Guess what? You are part of a rapidly growing tribe that’s avoiding ad breaks across media, from TV to radio, internet or out of home (hoardings, Bus shelters etc). Media clutter, it seems is deepening this disenchantment across rural and urban markets in the upper brackets.

Engross, a research study conducted by Intellect, a part of Lintas Group, along with Hansa Research Group, reveals that ad avoidance has grown by 70% across media vehicles in India over the past four years. There were 1073 urban respondents (SEC A, age 15-40, students, house wives, working men and women) for the research across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. The number of rural area respondents was 892, age group 15-40, out of which 606 were village ‘sanchalaks’ or male decision makers, and 286 were women.

The first attractor to a medium is its content, followed by its ambient design, media brand value and the consumer’s state of mind. The research covers the first two measurable units, that is, content that can also can be termed as ‘attraction’ towards the media vehicle and ambient design or ‘distraction’ from the media vehicle-which is the ad break. Between 2004 and 2006, in television, the ad avoidance level was 77%. In newspapers the avoidance increased from 63% to 78%. In radio and Internet, the growth figures in ad avoidance were 36% to 72% and 50% to 75% respectively.

Villagers don’t like it

The research reveals that rural areas are higher on ad avoidance that urban areas. The highest ad avoidance in rural areas is 80% for OOH, followed by radio (79%), newspaper (79%) and television (78%).

There are two types of ‘distraction’: active avoidance and passive avoidance. The former group deliberately makes an attempt to avoid ads, while the later are indifferent to ads and simply ignore them.

Lynn de Souza, director, media services, Lintas, said, “Ad avoidance has been an eternal problem for media planners and we have been battling it for a while. The age-old solutions were to make ads that don’t look like one, such as branded entertainment etc. It was important to understand what consumers find appealing in a medium and what makes them avoid ads. We felt that if we could find a measurable link between the two that would definitely improve our media choices.”

They were surprised to see high levels of avoidance in rural areas and even on the internet. That is a reflection of the consumer’s overall disapproval of the enormously high and growing ad clutter levels. There should be a differentiated creative strategy for each media vehicle for the same brand, instead of the same vanilla ad running across media.

Still, consumers don’t dislike advertising. About 85% of respondents believe that ads are beneficial, 81% say that ads drive consumerism, though 61% talk about the shortcomings of advertising.