'consumers Increasingly Do not Trust Marketing Messages.'

A seven-word statement that could lead to the most fundamental changes yet experienced by advertising agencies world-wide, believes Forrester Research.



These are the chilling words that introduce yet the latest research emanating from the USA. on the state of advertising to day.



You know, try as I may to say something positive about advertising these sort of studies are being issued forth on almost a daily basis and could well lead to the demise of advertising as we know it!



And so where can advertisers go to slap their obnoxious messages?



The Web?



Well, sorry to say but the latest on Web advertising is not that good either.

Consider this. A recent study shows that:



Heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. Heavy clickers are not representative of the general public.



This is backed up by other research from last year:



Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.



So who are people clicking? Well, the most recent study says:



Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently on line than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time on line than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.



65% of all Web visitors log on to visit pornography! Are they worth advertising to? Hmmm maybe for condoms, not much else though – and even then will they be interested enough to watch commercials?

Then consider:

“There’s too much (advertising) when you sign on,” complains MySpace user John Sigona (32) who likes the site but ignores the ads. “They don’t interest me,” he claims.

That last statement goes right to the heart of the problem – meaningless noise, better know as clutter. It hasn’t taken that long for that problem to catch up with Internet advertising, I guess that understandable given the rush to advertise on the Internet!



It appears pretty conclusive to me that combining this information with banner blindness, that things don’t look good for online display advertising!

Which, when you consider reality (not advertising reality I hasten to add!) is not all that surprising.

We really must get on with developing relevant, engaging advertising, by that I mean not passive one-way advertising – but properly executed interactive advertising



Then comes the news that TV advertisements are less effective than two years ago – now isn’t that a surprise!

A majority of US marketers believe that television advertising has become less effective over the past two years, spurring interest in exploring new ad and video commercial formats.

That's the conclusion of the fourth biennial TV & Technology survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research.



Among the study's main findings...



* Sixty-two percent of marketers believe TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years, but close to half of the advertisers surveyed have already started to experiment with new ad types to work with DVRs and VOD programs.



* Eighty-seven percent of advertisers believe branded entertainment will play a stronger role in TV advertising in the coming year.

* Advertisers are eager to try new ad formats, including ads in online TV shows (65 percent), ads embedded in VOD (55 percent), interactive television ads (43 percent), and ads within the set top box menu (32 percent).

* Over 50 percent of marketers reported that when half of all TV households use DVRs, they will cut spending on TV advertising by 12 percent.

* Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they intend to spend more on Web advertising this year.

Seventy-two percent of marketers are very interested in having individual commercial ratings.



May I ask why they are not considering using the most powerful communication technique available to them?



Having invested over $10 million in independent research, Paul Ashby is ideally suited to present the case for the widespread use of interactive marketing communication. The research investment has proved conclusively that one exposure to an interactive "event" is far more effective in all key measurements, than traditional advertising. Paul made this investment because his company, Effective . Accountable . Communication is predicated on being totally accountable to its Clients.

Discover more on http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com