The Average European Thinks There Is Too Much Advertising, But The UK Quite Likes It

An average European believes that there is too much advertising, and that it tempts people to buy things which they don’t need. In the UK, however, 75% of people believe that advertising is entertaining.

These are the findings of a pan-European study conducted by GfK Great Britain. The survey also found the Germany was the most anti-advertising, with only 20% of respondents believing that ads are useful to the consumer. In the UK this figure stood at 85%.

Indeed, most European countries adopt a more cynical stance towards advertising than in the UK. For all but four of the 14 countries surveyed, less than half of respondents believed that advertising was useful for consumers. Slightly contradictory perhaps, is that more people were willing to agree that ads enabled a comparison between products,.

There was also a general ‘over-half’ agreement that advertising leads to higher sales and, therefore, saves jobs. Again, only 28% of Germans agreed with this statement. There was an almost unanimous agreement that advertising led to products being more expensive.

In the UK, the over 50s believe that there is too much advertising and that it is not very entertaining. The reverse position was found to be held by 16-29 year olds.

The survey is to be conducted again over a period of time; a representative sample of 16,691 respondents was used.

GfK Great Britain: 0171 872 4600