New survey "The State of online advertising". And it doesn't make good reading.....

Adobe and research company Edelman Berland, have just published a report on the "state of online advertising" which throws up some sobering stats. It shows a marked difference between how consumers perceive online advertising versus how marketeers do.

68% of consumers found online advertising "annoying" whilst only 47% of marketeers did. 14% of consumers found it "eye catching" whilst 21% of marketeers did. And notably 10% only of consumers found it "clever" whilst 22% of marketeers thought it was. 

Only 31% of consumers enjoyed the Ads and 45% said the best place for advertising was on "newspapers/TV". Blogs and Apps do badly at 4%. 11% of consumers thought there were "no good ads".

57% of consumers say they've "liked" a brand on Social Media and a massive 53% want a "dislike" button too! 73% said that they thought Ads should "tell a story" and 67% thought a video was "worth a thousand words".

The sense of the survey is that online advertising needs to tread carefully to be receptive and effective. In other words, it's a different medium and so simple adaptations from the offline world, won't cut it. In a lot of ways, online advertising is an intrusion, especially on Social Media and so it needs to be handled with more care. It needs to be relevant and worthwhile.

What the survey points out is that practitioners (marketeers) think they're doing a better job than in fact, they are. Possibly, and I see this a lot, because they're not as familiar as they should be with the online marketplace.

To advertise to your audience, you need to understand your audience and indeed, understand the medium in the same way that we all understand traditional media.

Consumers feel (54%) that online banners simply do not work and that TV/online video is the way to go. So better formats with better, relevant and less intrusive content will work more successfully.

There's a danger here in online advertising that we're getting it wrong. Knowledge of what is happening in the online space, is power. And perhaps, above all, Ad Agencies should bring themselves more up to speed before they start talking.

There's a lot of research out there that says that the ad makers don't get it. That we don't really understand and are paying it all lip service as "just another medium" - which it's not. The space is different, the consumer attitude when in the space is different, the ability to connect is different. This survey is just another warning.

Take it serious.