When cellphones became small enough to fit in our pockets, it changed the way we lived and worked. It gave us more freedom, in a sense. But it also made us more captive. We can now be contacted by bosses, colleagues, customers, and family 24 hours a day—and there is an expectation that we’ll answer (because we usually do). Our culture is wrapped around 24-hour access.
Even when we’re away on vacation with family in Bermuda, we’re on call. Even when we’re sleeping. Or in the bathroom.
Advertising is no different. As marketers and advertisers, if you have a wallet, we will find you. Direct mail. Email. Social media. Influencers. Television. Radio. Banner ads. Billboards. Video. In-store posters. In-subway posters. In social media feeds. Served up within apps or at home on Alexa.
If you are hiding under a rock, we will still find you.
We’re Just Too Good
Marketers have to be creative because consumers are tuning out. The novelty of the “always on” culture is wearing off. People are unsubscribing from emails. Using ad blockers. Pre-recording TV shows to skip commercials. Maybe if they are hiking the Appalachian Trail—out of cellphone range—they can get a bit of a breather. Wait! Is that a plane with a trailing advertising banner flying overhead?
In order to be effective, marketers have become, by necessity, persistent. If consumers block an ad, we send them an email. If they unsubscribe, we send direct mail. If they walk by the store and ignore the posters in the window, bing! They receive a geotargeted ad on their phone. Even Tivo isn’t a reliable escape from TV ads anymore. We just add product placements to their favorite TV shows.
Thanks to marketing ingenuity, consumers cannot escape exposure to thousands of ads every day. If they tune out, we find a workaround (we call it “breaking through”). By sheer volume, it works. But will there come a point at which enough is enough? Is it possible to push consumers too far?
Signs of Saturation
One of the signs that consumers are reaching saturation is the introduction of AI-enabled product placement. When consumers are showing their frustration by skipping past or walking away during TV and video ads, what is marketers’ next step? To embed those ads where they can’t walk away from them. The show has already been produced? No problem. Thanks to AI, those products can be placed retroactively. A bottle of Carlo Rossi can be added to the table during the dinner scene. A Coke advertisement can appear on the wall behind the characters as they walk through the diner. Is that a can of Bubly popping out from underneath the judge’s table on America’s Got Talent?
Rembrand, an AI-product placement platform offering retroactive (and natural) product placement in TV shows and video), claims that this form of advertising is less annoying than other types because it relies on passive consumption. It’s not interrupting the consumer’s journey. It indirectly becomes part of it.
And the Results Are…
According to Rembrand, its service results in:
- 43% increase in product awareness
- 18% increase in brand favorability
- 15% increase intent to purchase
Will those results last? Or will the novelty wear off and will consumers start tuning out entirely? Only time will tell. Which leads to the question: If shoppers are tuning out because they are bombarded with so much advertising, is the answer to find and tap into their last bastions of advertising-free content? Or will we eventually see a consumer backlash? If so, what might that backlash look like?
Is it a coincidence that, after several years of declines, book sales saw an uptick in 2024?
