Why 90% of Viewers Skip Your Ads (And What It Means for Your Strategy)

There’s a big disconnect facing advertisers and publishers today. Billions of dollars are spent on ads that are annoying, skipped and ignored, which leads advertisers and publishers to shovel more ads into content experiences or make ads more intrusive, making the problem worse. 

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The data tells the story - 90% of viewers skip ads. And on content where there are too many ads,- 86% of viewers ignore them. When it comes to advertising, more isn’t necessarily more. In fact, more means getting ignored. Interruptive, obnoxious ads are seen as annoying by 70% of viewers. 

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As an industry, we can’t let this downward spiral continue. The cost of wasting money on bad  ads waste is huge - $72B annually - and could easily get worse if we throw good money after bad. More of the same forgettable or intrusive advertising doesn’t deliver the revenue advertisers want or the experience viewers expect.

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Viewers have spoken, and advertisers aren’t getting the return they should on their ad spend. It’s time for advertisers to find a better advertising strategy. 

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The Crisis of Bad Ads

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For too long, brands have leaned into two very different advertising philosophies, neither of which appeal to viewers:

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• Interruptive ads: Remember when a great movie would finally come to cable TV, only to have endless commercials right at all the good parts? Unfortunately, ad interruption hasn’t gotten any better in the past two decades since digital media has taken viewer attention. Today there are also pop-ups, takeovers, and overlays that make it hard for viewers to actually experience the content.
• Forgettable ads: On the other end of the spectrum are the millions and millions of ad impressions that are easily skipped and ignored - from ads played before short form video to banners in a social feed that can easily be scrolled past. Viewers have trained themselves to mentally move right past thousands of messages a day.

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These traditional ad models have been around for a while, slowly getting more widespread, and advertisers are finding that they are losing all effectiveness. Advertisers are finally experiencing the result of misaligned metrics. Brands often chase bad metrics like low CPMs and high CTRs instead of brand favorability or sales. This leaves media buyers with a mandate to buy the cheapest impressions possible, at the expense of viewer experience, creating dwindling performance. 

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To meet advertiser demand, media companies have created more and cheaper inventory slots for advertisers to fill, creating clutter and a false sense of affordable advertising. A few commercials during a soap opera in the 50’s increased significantly over time to equal about a third of total viewing time. When streaming rose to prominence, it was less cluttered, but quickly became just as full of ads as cable. Social media and digital video is no better. But running more bad ads isn’t actually cheaper, it’s more costly on the whole, especially considering brand erosion over time. 

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Early Signals of Change

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There is good news amid the ad clutter. With the shift to streaming, where advertisers can finally apply rich measurement metrics to TV, brands are waking up to the need for higher quality ad experiences. Rather than dial up frequency, they realize they need to dial up creativity. Instead of chasing cheap CPMs, they’re looking for high-performance ROI. 

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Advertisers also have a golden opportunity in front of them. There are emerging alternative ad formats that not only deliver better viewer experiences, they perform really well against advertiser goals.

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In content advertising is one growing category of advertising that delivers a win-win for viewers and brands, while opening up new revenue opportunities for media companies at the same time. From dynamically inserted signage to product placement and experience enhancements, AI has made it possible to put advertisers right in the action affordably and at scale. Today’s in-content advertising is already delivering fantastic results and it’s just getting going. On streaming, in-content ads will become part of the viewing experience, and viewers will know that they can interact, get more information and even shop as they are watching. 

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Advancements in AI ad creation also makes it possible for advertisers to make much more engaging ads by incorporating trending social content, dynamic product info and location-specific content. This means video creative stats to blur the lines between ads and content.

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What Forward-thinking Brands are Already Doing Differently

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Innovative brands are taking advantage of ad innovations to reconnect with viewers and break the bad ad cycle. When so many ads are forgettable at best and at worst, intrusive, smart brands are taking a fresh approach.

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Placing brands directly in content, and bringing social media content to the big screen is driving real results:

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• L’Oreal placed their products in a Cardi B video, which went viral, increasing sales dramatically, and gaining major brand exposure with key audiences.
• Dickie’s partnered with Target to pull trending social media content about their workwear into a CTV ad including to draw viewers in, generating a 10% lift in TV Quality Index Score.
• Cadillac placed signage in strategic scenes, integrating the brand with content to achieve above-benchmark brand metric performance. 

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These advertising innovations aren’t just an idea - they’re available today and driving real results for brands. They blur the line between advertising and content, giving brands a fresh opportunity to get real value from their media spend.

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Make the move to ads that are unskippable.

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