Case: Icebreak

The Swedes are becoming more and more tired of advertisements

The tiredness does surprisingly enough not concern the quantity of the advertisements as such, but the Swedish people is tired of the advertisements not being directed at them personally and thus not being sufficiently relevant. The tendency is very clear; the advert tiredness is increasing from one year to the next.

There is consistently a significantly lower share of positive in Sweden compared to the other Nordic countries, says Media Consultant Peter Westerståhl at Icebreak Scandinavia AB.

The results come from a survey of Nordic consumers’ attitudes towards the media and adverts that YouGov/Zapera conducted in August/September 2008. This survey has been conducted several years in a row so you can clearly follow the trends.

The most unwanted are the ads in TV, but people are also being disturbed by pop-ups, banners and ads on blogs and communities on the Internet. Many people think that direct ads are a sign of carelessness with our forests and “No Thank You” signs are appearing on more and more mailboxes, especially in the larger cities. The interest for “NO” to telephone salesmen is continuingly growing and people are tired of telemarketing and SMS-ads.

The free press is doing well, while the conventional daily press is doing worse and worse. The saying “Content is king” is no longer true, among many, especially the younger generation thinks that the news should be free of charge.

The most important conclusion that Peter makes is that the advertisers should focus a lot more on studying their target groups. The segmentation has to improve and the advertisers should to a much larger degree conduct both quantitative and qualitative surveys in order to secure the relevance of the message.

Source: YouGov News, Issue 31, February 2009