We hear it all the time, ‘radio plays too many commercials.’ There’s no denying that but radio is not alone. eMarketer reports that Millennials are turning to ad blockers to help combat that the abundance of ads they see shooting at them online. Two out of three millennials now use an ad blocker on a desktop or mobile device.
Anatomy Media, a creative advertising agency specializing in entertainment marketing, surveyed 2,700 US adults ages 18 to 24. Overall, the study found that most US millennials internet users have an ad blocker on at least one device. Nearly half of respondents (46%) said they use one on their desktop, and 31% said they have one on their mobile device. Typically, respondents blocked ads on just one of these devices, but 14% blocked on computers as well as phones.
So as marketers try to bombard consumers with more and more ads, consumers are fighting back with ad blockers or by switching off your radio station
There is also another behaviour that is conducive to radio having an (even slight) advantage.
When people are online and are forced to view an ad – some of which stay streaming for a full 30 seconds – they sit there and get pissed off at the advertiser, because they are being prohibited from watching the content on which they originally clicked.
Then there are those ads where, at the 4-second mark, they too can be blasted out – with the viewer already in ill humour. The banners that regularly cover the content generate some serious grumbling, as well.
Radio spots – some might agree – are being broadcast to a slightly more passive audience – those who, in many cases, will tolerate them ’till they are finished.
Testing that tolerance with massive, interminable phusterclucks of spots is another, separate matter, but still worthy of significant re-considerations.