By: Lucy Panicacci

Local News Editor

In today’s day and age, it seems impossible to go on any social media platform without facing a bombardment of advertisements. These ads crowd the Instagram Explore page, pop-ups on websites, influencer sponsored videos, etc. Despite the sheer number of them, advertisements should not be the primary method to promote products. Online advertising methods are inadequate, flooding consumers with unappealing content instead of encouraging them to buy products.

The majority of people find online advertisements unreliable, making ads inefficient. Modern day advertising methods rely on exaggerating the benefits of a product without acknowledging the downsides, covering social media platforms with misleading claims. According to a 2022 Edelman survey, 92 percent of 36,000 participants stated that they did not consider advertising to be trustworthy. In addition, consumers perceive sponsored content, where a company pays an influencer to promote a product, as inauthentic and biased. Ads dominate social media platforms, yet, in the majority of cases, do not result in purchases due to their untrustworthy nature. 

Rather than advertisements, consumers find the recommendations of unbiased sources more helpful. The book, The Post Truth Business, by Sean Pillot de Chenecey, found that 50 percent of all transactions originate from word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, family, and peers. 

Due to the unreliability of ads, they often become bothersome parts of social media platforms. Consumers’ decreased receptiveness to advertising results in ad desensitization. An article by The Drum estimated that people see around a hundred ads per day, but do not remember the vast majority. Furthermore, Chenecey reported that people forget 89 percent of the average ads. 

As a result of the short-term impact of advertising, companies are starting to increase their social media presence further. A study by Business Insider found that out of 1,000 TikToks watched in one sitting, nearly a third were ads. This large number of ads on social media platforms obstructs the experience of users. Users cannot enjoy entertainment without the constant nuisance of often undesirable and unreliable promotion of products. For instance, the newly introduced TikTok shop pushes unrealistically low priced clothes and accessories, such as a seven dollar cable knit sweater, a five dollar leather purse, and two dollar dupes of Ugg slippers. TikTok promotes these impossibly low priced products onto users’ For You pages and at the top of their recommendations, making users view ads as intolerable. 

Overall, current advertising methods are ineffective because they push an influx of unwanted and untrustworthy content onto consumers’ social media pages. The mass amount of online ads has the opposite of the desired effect, bombarding users and making them unreceptive to the ad’s message. Instead of maximizing their marketing, companies should dedicate more time and money towards improving their product and strategically creating appealing advertisements. 

(Sources: The Drum, Business Insider, Linkedin, SmartFrame)