Who are these “Ad Avoiders”?

“Advertising avoidance is the biggest issue facing us as media researchers”, said Ivor Hussein, research director of Western International Media, at this years MRG Conference in Nice. “It is an issue that has been ignored for far too long”, he told the conference. It must be accepted that advertising is providing a diminishing return on investment, Hussein stated. “It is a cheek to refer to them as impacts, they are just messages sent.”

How do we recognise ad avoiders? Better educated, better read, higher personal income – but demographically similar to advertising watchers. Hugely important to upmarket advertisers, but also to FMCGs as these people, Western’s research showed, are not price sensitive. These people will only consume good quality, “involving” advertising.

The problem is even greater for satellite advertisers. The quality of advertising on satellite was lower on average, and – just by the fact that subscribers have so many channels – the remote is used more. People change once they become multi-channel users. Shelia Byfield of Mindshare confirmed these findings from her own research into this issue.

Research in South Africa showed that a TV advertisement that was “disliked” had to buy 80% more ratings to achieve the same as an appreciated advertisement. In the UK this figure was put at about 30%.

This is not just a UK problem, Hussein concluded. It is even worse across Europe.

Hopefully full paper, including data tables will follow shortly.