Consider the following:
- If you can pay $11.99 for Hulu, you are ad-free.
- If you can pay $8 for Netflix, you are ad-free.
- If you can pay $10 for YouTube, you are ad-free.
- If you can pay $15 for HBO, you are ad-free.
- If you can pay $4.99 for Spotify, you are ad-free.
- If you have an iPhone, AppleTV or iPad, you can be ad-free.
Couple all of the above with the recent news that The New York Times & The Wall Street Journal are exploring ad-free digital subscriptions, and an obvious question arises: what is the future of advertising in an increasingly ad-free world?
Obviously I live in the world of PR, so my professional expertise doesn’t necessarily lend a hand in addressing this issue, but my experience as a consumer (who has ad-free accounts for most of the aforementioned entertainment) does. The undeniable truth is that technological advancements have impacted every industry in the global business landscape, and advertising is no exception. As a recent report published by Forrester research points out, “The end of advertising is coming because interruptions are coming to an end.” Steve Jobs once said that finding someone today who likes mobile advertising is like finding someone who likes mosquitos. The previous strategy of advertising was to bombard consumers with thousands of ads a day, subject them to endless load times, interrupt them with pop-ups, and overpopulate their screens and feeds. Unfortunately for advertisers, today’s consumers are spending less and less of their time doing interruptible things on interruption-friendly devices.
Understanding human behavior will be the key to the advertising industry surviving the next few decades. According to a 2014 study by neuroeconomist Paul Zak, three out of eight people now love brands more than their spouses, because thinking of brands releases more oxytocin – the same reaction generated when being hugged. Putting aside how incredibly depressing that statistic is, it shows that advertisers need to shift their attention from what advertising looks like to what advertising feels like. As this article from the Guardian says, “Already 75% of consumers expect and want retail experiences to be personalized, and over the next 10 years most marketing will become like the Amazon Recommends feature on steroids.”
Ultimately, automation has changed the relationship between consumers and brands, and it’s likely that moving forward, content and advertising will become more and more intertwined. Technology has spoiled us, and left us with an insatiable appetite for uninterrupted entertainment. Because of that, it’s crucial for the advertising industry to embrace a different approach, and find ways to communicate their message in an entertaining and thought-provoking way by immersing the consumer in their brand experience instead of dictating it to them.
