“And it's time you pick your battle, and I promise you this is mine.” I hear as my song finished on Spotify ("Isle of Flightless Birds" by Twenty One Pilots). Then, as usual, I brace myself for what comes next, it’s the end of my half hour of advertisement-free music. I turn down the volume to zero and just wait. Thirty seconds seems like such a long time when you are furious. I have heard the same set of three advertisements every single day at work for the last month. First there is 5-Hour Energy’s absolutely terrible country jingle about being too tired. Then Spotify trying to sell me Premium (which would solve the advertisement problem, I guess). And finally the O'Reilly Auto Parts song that I have heard for years.
I understand the point of advertising but there comes a point when it is just done with such stupidity that it makes me angry. Companies are spending huge sums of money on campaigns that are being played to the completely wrong audience for no reason. I absolutely refuse to ever buy a 5-Hour Energy product because I heard their song one too many times (of about five hundred too many times) and that is just a marketing failure. Why on earth would you repeatedly play a country jingle on my obviously not country music playlist? I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT! So why does it always seem that these advertisements that play are completely irrelevant or just overplayed?
All advertising has the same goal in mind: get someone to invest something in a product or service. Generally, advertisements are run in such a way that people who are more likely to invest in the product see the advertisement more, such as Spotify Premium being advertised to Spotify users. However in the ever-growing world of online marketing, this task becomes difficult for companies that are trying to advertise products that are sold offline or on lesser known websites. To overcome this task, companies (especially Google) create algorithms based on your search history to better market to you items that you will more likely buy. Great! I will only get advertisements about things I like now! Wrong.
These algorithms take into account the things you search most often as well as things you only searched once. I could search places to purchase games all of the time and then search jewelry once for my girlfriend (an example from one of my friends) and then repeatedly get advertisements for jewelry companies and not my games. All because of that one search. Obviously, companies want to get their product seen but these algorithms are simply bad.
I may not be a marketing expert but sending me the same advertisement that I hate over and over again just seems like a waste of money. A simple rating system for advertisements would go a long way for both customers and companies would it not? I get to see advertisements that are actually relevant to me and companies can see where their advertisement campaigns are best received so that they can adjust them or focus more on a certain demographic. I demand an explanation as to why this is so difficult. Looking at you, Google.
