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Jon Wilkins Marketing Karmarama

What really riles consumers? We Are Social and Karmarama outline seven ‘deadly sins’ of bad marketing

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By Jessica Davies, News Editor

March 19, 2015 | 4 min read

More than two million negative tweets were sent about advertising globally over the past year, according to research conducted by We are Social for the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

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The analysis, run over a six-month period, was based on 670,000 English language Twitter mentions making negative reference to ads, with TV ads taking the biggest hit, followed by online and then radio.

Ads on music streaming service Pandora appeared to annoy the sample the most, but YouTube and Spotify interruptions were close behind.

Just over half the tweets were original statements but 37 per cent were retweets, meaning Twitter users have retweeted negative comments almost 750,000 times. One in ten tweets were replies, usually agreeing with the negative sentiments of the original tweet.

The average complainant had more than 1,000 followers, while men were found to be more likely to complain about brand marketing by a ratio of 60:40 but both sexes were equally likely to be positive.

However, the research - unveiled today (19 March) at the WFA's Global Marketing Week in Marrakech, also found that three million tweets were positive in relation to advertising.

From the research, Simon Kemp from We Are Social and Jon Wilkins, executive chairman of Karmarama, picked out the seven most common triggers of consumer backlash against brand marketing messages:

  • Ad malaise. A very large number of tweets expressed a generic dislike of ads or commercials. More extrapolated tweets referenced the ubiquity and overall frequency of ads, the length of the ad break or the context in which the ad appeared.
  • Interruption. Consumers recognise that ads help pay for content but they expect marketers to make an effort to make their marketing less irritating. The tweets analysed showed that interruption was most annoying during high intensity content such as action and drama shows or live sporting events. Interruptions to The Walking Dead were the most common references to a specific piece of content. Marketers need to make more of an effort to add value to the context in which they appear rather than simply interrupting it.
  • Incongruity. Too many brands are choosing the wrong moment and the wrong audience for their messages. It might be the right time but the wrong place or the right time but the wrong audience. Tweets complained about inappropriate ads, those that appeared when they watched TV with their parents or ads that were simply irrelevant. Constant retargeting was also heavily criticised.
  • Deception. The truth will set you free. Claims that consumers feel to be exaggerated really rile people; they expect brands to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thanks to social media it doesn’t take long for people to call out false or deceptive claims and drive negative engagement around the brand. Brands will gain credibility if they are honest and don’t airbrush the challenges they know they face and consumers know they face.
  • Overkill. Too many ad breaks and often ad breaks that are too long. Frequent interruption to a particular piece of content or media channel can create irritation with all commercials, regardless how often any individual message appears. This is combined with a rage against high frequency advertising. Even the best stories lose something in the retelling, particularly if you’ve already heard it seven or eight times before.
  • Getting personal. Online targeting that’s meant to be clever but is actually annoying. Deficient algorithms might be the industry’s biggest challenge: ads inappropriate to the content alongside which they feature, consumers clumsily targeted without heed for personal circumstances and sensitivities and numerous cases where individuals were targeted by certain brands even though they had already expressed negative sentiments about the brand in question online.
  • Dearth in quality. Too many ads are just poor and end up annoying consumers. Brands need to prioritise quality over quantity, meaningful engagement over frequency of exposure and work harder to test whether the ads are engaging and add value before they expose them to consumers.
Jon Wilkins Marketing Karmarama

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