What Gives You the Advertising “Ick”? Here’s How Marketers Answered.

What gives you the ick? That’s what we recently asked marketers. And no, MNTN Research isn’t pivoting to relationship content. We were just curious about why some ads turn people off — and what drives marketers to create more ads (or not). Marketers are marketers, but they’re also customers, which means the insights they can provide are multi-faceted. Here’s what they had to say.

Seeing the Same Ad Too Often Irks Advertisers

Advertisers: they’re just like us. Turns out, seeing an ad over and over again bugs them, too. 38.5% of our respondents said that “excessive repetition (ad fatigue)” turns them off. Other popular answers were “inauthenticity” and “it doesn’t resonate (aka bad audience targeting).”

Here’s how the rest of the list shook out:

Concerns About Budget and Resources Impact Ad Creation (Or Lack Thereof)

Budget — a marketer’s archnemesis. We kid. Kind of. But it should still come as no surprise that 30.4% of respondents said “budget concerns” was the primary barrier keeping them from creating ads. In second place was a response that goes hand-in-hand with budget: “time and resources.” Only 10.9% said that they’re happy with their TV ad output, indicating that this is a common issue — one we all want to see solved.

Advertisers Want Transparent Reporting, Scalable Solutions, and Reliable Audience Targeting

We know that a plethora of issues often impact ad production, but we wanted to learn more about what would encourage marketers to create ads. Our respondents noted the following as the top three factors: “being able to better measure and attribute performance,” “cost-efficient and scalable solutions,” and “knowing my ads will reach the right audience.”

Advertisers continue to put more time and resources into television advertising, particularly into Connected TV (CTV) — in 2024, CTV is predicted to make up one-third of all TV advertising spend. But based on the responses highlighted above, there’s still a number of factors holding advertisers back from fully committing to creating ads for use on the channel. To combat these concerns, it’s vital for marketers to find the right advertising solution — one whose technology is sophisticated enough to not serve the same ads repetitively, that will consistently target the right audiences, and can provide transparent reporting that will prove return on investment (ROI).