Consumers want variety as well as relevance

A survey conducted by market research firm Dynata, on behalf of creative automation platform Celtra, showed consumers wearying of over-familiar creative assets in messaging by brands.

The survey targeted 1,000 adult U.S. consumers. Here are some highlights:

• 66% of consumers find ads and social media messaging from brands to be repetitive. Reflecting that figure, 67% want to see greater variety;
• Relevance and irrelevance run almost neck and neck, with 56% finding messaging to be relevant to their interests;
• Surprisingly, only 51% find relevant messages more memorable; and
• Although they ask for variety, 60% also expect brand messaging to remain consistent.

Although the main message of the findings is clear—consumers don’t want brands to bore them—the fact that around half of those surveyed didn’t find even relevant messages memorable is harder to interpret. It might mean that relevance doesn’t much matter; but it might also mean that they’re not seeing much memorably relevant messaging in the first place.

Why we care. Clearly, a creative automation platform like Celtra thrives on the demand for volume and variety in creative assets. Nevertheless, the results show the challenge of catering to consumer expectations: surprise us, but be consistent; about relevance, we’re not sure.

About The Author

Kim Davis

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech Today. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.