As a loyal HGTV fan, I watch almost all of the shows on that channel. Now that I’m back on campus, I can no longer watch them on the TV because I don’t have one. However, HGTV has a very handy app that I have downloaded to keep up with the shows. Understandably, since the app is free, ads are served during my viewing experience. What’s annoying is that ad publishers aren’t mindful of what sequence and in what frequency they are playing those ads. Clearly, Virginia has paid a lot of money to play their ads because their “Virginia is for lovers” ad not only plays during every break, but it plays several times per ad break. By the fourth time of listening to the ad in a row, I feel like I’m going insane.
The disadvantages of playing ads too often
There are several disadvantages that companies can draw from not managing their ad placements correctly. The most benign consequence is that users develop ad fatigue way earlier than would have happened normally. What this means is that the user has seen a particular ad too many times and is getting bored with it. With this boredom, the rate of return decreases. A more serious consequence is that the user gets annoyed at the ad and at the ad publisher for showing the ad so many times. This not only doesn’t help the company’s image but it might actually harm it. Personally, I’m now even less inclined to visit Virginia than I was originally and I will definitely not click on the ad. Because I’m annoyed at the publisher for stringing the same ad after itself over and over, I am very likely to mute the entire ad break. This decreases the CTR for all of the ad clients in that session. If an ad publisher has a low CTR, they will be unable to charge a premium for their ad placements. If the CTR decreases, the ad publisher will have fewer clients and thus fewer ads to play. Given the repetitive nature of the ad breaks, the ad publisher is already showing that it either doesn’t have enough ad clients to play different ones during the same session or it can’t manage its ad placements. Having a lower CTR will only perpetuate this vicious cycle.
What do you think ad publishers could do to avoid this situation? Could they learn from the way TV channels manage their ads?