Brief - The Hustle

If ads are inevitable, what makes them good?

Written by Juliet Bennett Rylah | May 13, 2022 6:43:39 AM

Love it or hate it, Netflix will likely launch an ad-supported tier this year in the wake of its 200k-subscriber loss.

While CEO Reed Hastings has long resisted ads, he recently said he was “a bigger fan of consumer choice.”

And it turns out a majority of consumers would choose ads — Morning Consult found 57% of US consumers prefer a low-cost ad-supported service.

On the flip side…

… Unsupervised, an AI analytics platform, found 69% of consumers have abandoned a platform over irritating ads — which raises the question: What makes for a winning ad?

Research shows top attributes include favorite brands, and content that’s relatable, informative, or funny.

Take Coca-Cola’s personalized “Share a Coke” campaign, or Metro Trains Melbourne’s “Dumb Ways to Die” ads, which promoted rail safety through cartoons.

Perhaps predictably, ads deemed bad feature:

Alternatively, if an ad can’t be relatable, perhaps it could be so bizarre that it launches an ice cream company.