Sorin Patilinet thinks the digital ad industry has a big problem.
The Senior Director Consumer Insights at Mars said that consumers are going out of their way to block, skip and avoid brands’ online ads, to the degree that he considers it a “crisis.”
“Ads are annoying,” Patilinet told me during the most recent episode of my Next In Media podcast. “Consumers are telling us that every day.”
Why? Part of the problem are the uninspired formats many brands are employing online, Patilinet said. And part of the issue is simply the ads themselves. “We have a history of not so great advertising,” he said.
To fix these macro creative and media challenges, brands like Mars need sophisticated research (just make better ads isn’t a sustainable solution). Patilinet has partnered with an AI-backed researcher, RealEyes, to help figure out which formats and creative types cause real consumers to respond and engage – before they spend millions on digital ad campaigns that are doomed to fail.
Some of the findings are eye opening (no pun intended). For example, Mars found that social video ads common to platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts are actually more impactful that standard pre-roll ads. Going forward, the company’s research could have profound implications on what ads get made and where they are distributed.
The video on this page is a short excerpt. Listen to the full interview with Fisher on Next in Media here on Spotify or here on Apple Podcasts. Next in Media is produced in partnership with Beet.TV, presented by MiQ.
