Report: Poor ad experience forces consumers to ‘switch off’

Consumers are unhappy with the ‘poor ad experience’ of streamed video content in Australia, according to new findings by Stable Research.

The research, commissioned by Australian-based Switch Media and of 1000 consumers of streamed video content in Australia, found almost 46 per cent of viewers would switch off as a result of poor ad serving. A further 28 per cent said they would only tolerate poor ad insertion if the show was something they were desperate to watch, while only 8 per cent would tolerate poor ad serving.

Switch Media co-founder and CEO, Christopher Stenhouse, said while streaming services are popular around the globe, the research shows consumers are unhappy with the way advertising is served across the variety of services on offer.

“Four in 10 respondents had advertising insertion as one of their major complaints of streaming services,” Stenhouse said in a statement. “The only issue that was cause for greater complaints was buffering.

“The dissatisfaction is something we believe is a universal problem particularly where client-side ad insertion is used. With this insertion method, the latency often results in an ad being served too late or too early. The research is clear; if consumers are frustrated by the way advertising is inserted, they will switch off and, as a result, broadcasters will be forgoing significant revenue.”

The research has also found ad insertion placement is costing Over the Top (OTT) publishers of streaming services massive revenue. Meanwhile, OTT streaming services offered up by Subscription and Advertising Video on Demand (SVOD and AVOD) mean companies risk significant revenue seepage as a result of a poor advertising experience, the research suggested.

Other findings show only one-in-five consumers are opposed to advertising being shown on streamed services, with 43 per cent saying while they don’t like advertising, they tolerate it. Additionally, most consumers (61 per cent) preferred advertisers to play longer advertising as opposed to a number of shorter adverts.

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