Everyone Claims to Hate Ads. Do They?
Americans are increasingly embracing ads, thanks to Gen Z’s preference for digital content and influencer partnerships. Explore more in this article by John K. Addis and Allison Pazera.
Everyone Claims to Hate Ads. Do They?
Americans are increasingly embracing ads, thanks to Gen Z’s preference for digital content and influencer partnerships. Explore more in this article by John K. Addis and Allison Pazera.
It is difficult for an American to avoid constant exposure to marketing and advertising in all aspects of their lives, from watching television to using a phone to driving on a major street to opening the mail. It is also not uncommon for the average American to decry such omnipresent corporate communication, particularly when an advertisement interrupts something they are consuming by choice, such as a YouTube video. Frustration with ads is nothing new, of course—Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the mid-1950s would often poke fun at its own sponsors, and complain about the interruption in the program, creating a winking adversarial relationship between the creator of the show and the advertisers who funded it. In the 1990s and 2000s, shows such as The Simpsons and 30 Rock would poke fun at the increasing invasiveness of advertising such as lower-thirds ads (“snipes”) and conspicuous product placement. More recently, Last Week Tonight and South Park lambasted the “native advertising” trend of ads disguised as legitimate news. One could assume that distaste for ads and a desire to avoid them would be on the rise as advertising has become more ubiquitous. Surprisingly, recent evidence suggests the opposite is true.
Kantar Media, a global data and insights company specializing in media trends, releases a yearly Media Reactions report which measures consumer sentiment on advertising in a variety of formats, from traditional print, TV and radio outlets to more modern social media and gaming spaces. While only 19% of Americans reported a positive feeling toward advertisements as recently as 2016, this year’s survey found the positive number improved to 47% — the highest in the survey’s history. From Inside Radio’s reporting:
“Kantar says it is seeing improvement across the board, with newer channels — such as online video and games — having a more pronounced improvement on ad receptibility. Only 28% of consumers were positive towards online video ads in 2012. That number is now up to 54%. Similar gains were recorded for gaming ads, which have more than doubled — rising to 54% from 25% earlier.”
Indeed, the full report shows a dramatic turnaround for the receptivity of ad formats which were among the most hated as recently as 2015, such as mobile pop-up ads. In fact, no current ad format, according to Kantar Media, currently has a net negative rating.
While the Media Reactions report offers some opinion on why people are more receptive to advertising, such as increasing algorithm-guided ad relevance and the entertainment value of the ads themselves, another factor may be at play: a larger majority of survey respondents who understand the relationship between free content and the ads which fund it. Earlier this year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released a comprehensive studly entitled “The Free and Open Ad-Supported Internet: Consumers, Content, and Assessing the Data Value Exchange.” This study found overwhelming majorities of consumers agreeing that ads were a fair price to pay for receiving free information or services, and even that “80% of consumers would prefer to get more ads in turn for having to pay nothing for websites/apps.” Furthermore, this study may offer a clue as to why the Kantar Media report has been seeing greater acceptance of ads in recent years: a generational attitude shift. Gen-Z internet users are reported to value “the ad-supported internet” twice as much as users from the Baby Boom generation. In an increasingly online world, where even alarm clocks and refrigerators are connected to the internet, consumers are more willing to have a positive association with all forms of ads, as long as it saves them money.
Members of Gen-Z have grown up in a fully digital world, unlike any other generation. They have never known a world without social media or internet use every day, it is a part of their daily routines and influences all decision-making. According to Sprout Social, “It’s enmeshed in their daily lives and serves as their go-to channel for information—even beating out popular search engines.” In the past, younger generations were often seen as an undesirable market audience. However, that changed with the Baby Boomer generation, and now marketers are actively working to reach younger demographics. Even if they aren’t the immediate target audience, they should still be considered when developing campaigns since they are the future consumers.
This generation interacts with media differently than any other generation before and is changing the way marketers run campaigns. EMarketer reports this audience favors “User-generated content over professional productions, Algorithm-curated feeds over subscription services, Short-form video platforms like TikTok, Multi-platform engagement, and are often using several screens simultaneously”. The media preferred by the Gen-Z audience reflects their shorter attention span, and marketers must adapt content to capture attention within just a few seconds.
One of the ways that marketers are effectively reaching this audience on these platforms is the growing trend of Influencer Marketing. Sprout Social stated that “86% of US marketers will partner with influencers in 2025.” This is a 17% increase since 2021, and agencies are allocating more budget towards this marketing since it is working when targeting this demographic. A particularly well-known influencer marketing campaign in recent years was Dunkin Donuts launching a limited-time drink called “The Charli.” This was a collaboration with Charli D’Amelio, a famous Tik-Toker with one of the highest followings on the app. This campaign generated a 57% increase in mobile app downloads, a 20% sales boost for all cold brew coffees the day it was launched, and a 45% increase in sales the day after it was launched. This campaign showed how much this generation is influenced and how utilizing influencers to promote products and partnerships can have an immersive impact on a brand and its sales.
Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Even Alfred Hitchcock surely valued a sponsor’s financial support even if it interrupted his program. But it’s no longer just a grudging acceptance of ads as a necessary evil. Nearly half of Americans now claim to watch the Super Bowl largely “for the commercials”, and some forms of advertising (particularly movie trailers or humorous TV spots) can have hundreds of millions of intentional, eager views on top of the audience reached in a paid media buy. From fun, relevant ads to unwanted pop-ups, advertisements seem to be gaining in acceptance as consumers increasingly accept them as a part of modern life, as long as it makes consumable content more affordable or freely accessible. We may still complain about the bombardment of ads in our daily lives, but recent studies suggest, especially among the younger generations, we are more accepting of them than ever before.
Chen, Y. (2023). Influencer marketing. Open Journal of Business and Management, 11(5), 2310–2320.
Americans are warming up to advertising, says Kantar. (2024, October 22). Inside Radio.
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