Where are you sitting comfortably?

4 min readSep 15, 2022

One minute you’re looking at photos of your friend’s cats and the next you’re pressing “Buy Now” for a fit-in-your-pocket candy floss maker. We live in a material world and a successful advert can grab the attention of your viewer and guide them to your call to action. However, there are many variables that will influence whether that content will work or lead to ad avoidance.

Advertisement avoidance is best described as “all actions by media users that differentially reduce their exposure to ad content” (Speck & Elliott, 1997, p.61). This can take the form of channel hopping, looking away from the screen, turning the advert off … essentially any form of psychological avoidance.

It’s not unusual to be asked by a client to snip a section out of a piece of work and just run it as an advert. Although this can work, a successful campaign takes into account a number of predictors. These predictors are Ad-related, Platform-related and Audience-related. We’ll look at each of these predictors now.

Control plays a massive part in ad avoidance.

Ad-related predictors

Ad-related predictors focus on entertainment and appearance. They have traditionally used techniques that grab someone’s attention, such as bright colours, loud sounds, or celebrity presence. However, studies have shown that in certain situations, such as YouTube pre-roll, these traditional approaches can lead to reactance. Reactance, in this case, is caused by the audience being aware that they are being shown an advert and feeling unable to avoid it. This then causes them to focus on taking back control (Brehm, 1966; Clee & Wicklund, 1980) rather than consuming the content. This disruption can lead to disliking and skipping.

Studies have also found that basic emotions in the advertisement content (such as disgust, happiness, sadness, or surprise) also increased ad skipping, while more complex emotions (such as humour, nostalgia, exhilaration, or warmth) reduced ad skipping on YouTube pre-roll. The point at which the brand is introduced in the advertisement also had an effect on ad skipping (Campbell et al., 2017).

Platform-related predictors

Platform-related predictors relate to the consistency of the ad with the platform, the ad clutter and the amount of volition (click to play or auto play).

Again, control plays a massive part in ad avoidance on platforms.

Clark and colleagues (2018) examined how different types of ad placement and delivery are related to engagement/avoidance. Advertisements were shown a web page on a mobile phone. Self-reports, attention, behaviour, brain activity (EEG), and different physiological measures were then recorded. The results showed that when auto play was used on pre-roll and in-stream adverts it caused the most ad avoidance and the least emotional arousal. Yet, with pre-roll incentivised click to play, the content had a high brand recall; the largest percentage of ad watching and the best emotional response. Although, when click to play was used on in-stream ads, it was slightly less affective.

These findings emphasise the importance of avoiding reactance in a campaign — the viewer needs to feel in control.

You need to think about why your viewer is online at that moment in time.

Audience-related predictors

Audience-related predictors focus on the viewer’s goals and motivations, in this case, whilst online.

Our motivation is what drives us to consume content. We may be passively or actively viewing content; we may be goal-driven, or we may just be trying to find something to entertain us.

If a viewer is online seeking information then they are more likely to take action if that content is relevant (and thus not disruptive).

So, if, for example, you’re looking on YouTube for advice on how to replace the belt on a dryer and an advert for a new dryer belt comes up then you’re more likely to watch and react to it than if you were on Instagram looking at pictures of food and you saw the same advert. It sounds obvious — but you need to think about why your viewer is online at that moment in time when they make a connection with you. If they’re already on your website, for instance, then they already have a problem that they need fixing and prior knowledge of the solution — so you don’t need to do as much work to grab their attention.

The takeaway

Marketers tend to use blanket terms such as “social media content” when looking to creators to produce a piece of work. However, each platform offers different ways to advertise which need to be considered. Audiences also consume content differently on each platform. In fact, they consume content in a different way depending on their motivation and goals, and this needs to be taken into account when designing tasty content.

References:

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York, NY: Academic Press.

Campbell, C., Mattison Thompson, F., Grimm, P. E., & Robson, K. (2017). Understanding why consumers don’t skip pre-roll video ads. Journal of Advertising, 46(3), 411–423.

Clark, K. R., Leslie, K. R., Garcia-Garcia, M., & Tullman, M. L. (2018). How Advertisers Can Keep Mobile Users Engaged and Reduce Video-Ad Blocking Best Practices for Video-Ad Placement and Delivery Based on Consumer Neuroscience Measures. Journal of Advertising Research, 58(3), 311–326. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-2018-036

Clee, M. A., & Wicklund, R. A. (1980). Consumer behavior and psychological reactance. Journal of Consumer Research, 6(4), 389–405.

Speck, P. S., & Elliott, M. T. (1997). Predictors of advertising avoidance in print and broadcast media. Journal of Advertising, 26(3), 61–76.