Gone are the days when a TV was all there was as a source of visual information and entertainment. First in black and white and then colored. Oh, and remote control to keep you from walking across the living room to increase or decrease volume. The first remote control was not remote or wireless in today's sense of the word but connected by a wire to the TV and interestingly called 'Lazybones'.
In as much as this piece of innovative technology had spiced up life, there wasn't a diverse amount of content to be aired. It was either football, news, music, or the interruption by a TV Commercial. When this Advert came on, you had no option but to watch it to the end. I mentioned the option. Why would you need an option because there was none away?
Fast forward many years later and you've got options. A variety of TV channels airing a plethora of content; soccer, reality shows, movies, documentaries, cartoons etcetera. I call this the first option of choice powers that the customers as been given.
The second option of choice power is the ability to only pay for what you want to watch â€" PayTV such as DSTV, Netflix, Hulu, iRokoTV or get it free from YouTube, InstagramTV, Facebook etcetera. Like the remote control, the element of convenience here is key. All these options are available in the comfort of your palm â€" your smartphone.
As the number of choices increases and our attention span reduces from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to just under 8 seconds today, the third option comes into play. This is Ad-blockers. Most of you by now must have seen a screen prompt to install an Ad-blocking plugin or that all too familiar Skip-this-Ad button on YouTube.
Where does this customer Ad-blocking power leave the advertiser? It all boils down to the quality of the content and by quality, I don't mean high budget visual content. I referring to the advert's messaging alignment to the actual need that the customer wants to get solved.
Great marketing does not look like marketing so if your position as a brand in the first 8 seconds appears to be too salesy or marketingish (if those words exist but you get the point), your advertising efforts are more than likely to experience the Skip-this-Ad death for sure because today's customer is empowered beyond measure.
Source : https://taarifa.rw/skip-this-ad/
