As more and more ads are displayed to consumers everywhere they turn, less and less of them are consciously noticed by the average consumer. In fact, this is such a widespread phenomenon in the marketing industry that analysts have coined the term “Marketing Blindness” to associate with it. In this article we will discuss Marketing Blindness and how it has changed advertising strategy.
What is Marketing Blindness?
Before we discuss more of this phenomenon we feel compelled to define what marketing blindness is. If you don’t notice advertising in the subway, on the sidebar of your favorite news website, when they popup on mobile applications, or just about anywhere and everywhere you turn, you may suffer from marketing blindness. In case you haven’t guessed, marketing blindness is the ability of consumers to consciously block out advertising and marketing. Think about it, you are bombarded with ads everywhere you turn, think to yourself how often you actually see, read, or interact with one of them.
Who Is Blind to Marketing?
Not everyone suffers from marketing blindness but the overwhelming majority of people do. In fact, studies have shown that as many as 85 percent of people don’t consciously recall advertising. One study performed by adotas in 2013 showed that only 14 percent of respondents recalled the last display ad they saw and the company or product that it promoted.
Why Does Marketing Blindness Matter?
In an age of target marketing and advanced technology to ensure that relevant ads reach the consumer this challenge is far from over. In some studies less than 3 percent of consumers felt that ads were properly targeted properly. With such a low number of people noticing ads, and even less of them feeling as though ads were relevant it is more challenging than ever to achieve results from more traditional ad sources like Google Adwords.
During studies of marketing blindness users reported that 50 percent of the time users never clicks online ads and 35 percent of users clicked less than 5 times per month. For the small percentage of users that saw ads only a quarter of them saw the ads on their mobile devices while three quarters saw them on their laptops or desktop computers.
What Does This Mean for Marketing?
Online marketing agencies are still saying how important it is to marketing on mobile devices, driving more marketing dollars in this direction. Despite usage statistics that would seem to back up this strategy studies that have proven marketing blindness, especially on mobile devices would suggest to the contrary. Online marketing agencies should be aware of the trends and how to avoid spending their client’s dollars on marketing strategies that aren’t likely to be money well spent.
