The world wide web. A galaxy of digital abundance which houses an array of stars – from promotions and advertisements to trolls and scams. Having been a gamer for the longest time, the web has indefinitely become my second home, albeit yet to be explored fully. The experience gathered online throughout the years has allowed me to better identify trolls and scam emails but also exposed me to advertisements and digital marketing. The subconscious doubt of never knowing when to trust whatever you read online has indirectly altered the way in which I perceive everyday marketing.
Advertisements can be good sure, but is there a dark side to it? Speaking only for myself, I haven’t and probably won’t be a fan of clicking ads that show up on Google’s search ranking. Several notions in my head like ‘if they paid for ads they are inferior and lacked natural popularity’ or ‘seems incredible, just scroll till you get the first unpaid link’ just seem to prevent me from even giving these ads a glance.
I do however believe that many others out there prefer to simply click the first ranked ad and stray away from scrolling below. Paid ads undoubtedly increase reach and brand awareness, but what about brand perception? I was intrigued to know more about the cognitive processes that go through my head with regards to negatively viewing paid ads.
Advertising credibility, according to Richard J. Lutz’s research article, is defined as the degree to which a consumer believes claims made about a brand in an advertisement are true and believable. Consumers’ attitudes and behaviors are influenced by the trustworthiness of advertisements. Obermiller and Spangenberg took an opposite approach to the concept of advertising credibility, which they dubbed “advertising skepticism.” They defined it as ‘the tendency toward disbelief of advertising claims’. Pete Blackshaw, author and executive vice president of strategic services at Nielsen Online, discusses six key drivers of credibility that marketers should strive towards.
William R. Swinyard’s book also found that comparative ads were also shown to be much less trustworthy than noncomparative ads. If a viewer deems the comparable claim untrustworthy for any reason, counter-argumentation will ensue, lowering message acceptability.
It seems like I’m just one of many who tend to stray away from the mainstream idea of deeming the top ranking as the best. Humans alike have the tendency to give rise to skepticism when viewing advertisements. As such, marketing hasn’t been as easy as being able to pay for advertisements and being on the front page. Vying for consumers’ trust and establishing credibility in their marketing tactics shall be another aspect that plague the minds of marketers.
The World of Marketing 
Hi, i absolutely with your opinion. However, advertising congestion, want to stand out from the overwhelming advertising, into the sight of the public, innovation is the requirement of the age of advertising, and advertising exaggeration happens to be one of the important creative methods of creative advertising.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi, Jerry! Interesting insights on your opinion. I think its true that advertising exaggeration can create brand perception in various positive ways. It also important for businesses to note a fine line between exaggeration and deception. Innovation and having a competitive advantage for your product is therefore one of the best ways for companies to define their new products.
LikeLike
Hi, nice post! I agree that people are preferring to click the top rank ads rather than scrolling below. It is important for company to consider about using PPC to increase the traffic of their website, which has higher ROI than other method like TV ads.
However, there are more and more Advertising fraud or fake ads in the search engine, i think that the search engine service providers like Google should do investigate for the high ranking websites in the search list and also the company who are willing to purchase for PPC.
LikeLike
Hi, thanks for reading and commenting! It is true that there are a number of fraudulent advertisements out there. Other websites also make use of Black Hat SEO to boost their rankings in unethical ways. Google has indeed been trying their best to weed out such websites, by penalizing and tracking them down. Users can look out for basic ways to find out if a website is of credibility through a Secure Sockets Layer, a security protocol that creates an encrypted link between a web server and a web browser.
LikeLike
Hi! This is an interesting read! I absolutely agree your opinion on how web advertisements could have a negative impact on consumerism. Knowing that it’s an ad, I no longer click into the first result when using Google search too. However, paid ads are also necessary for brands to gain awareness, especially if their SEO isn’t strong enough for it to generate as organic search. Wonder whether if a renowned brand, e.g. Razer/Aftershock (since you mentioned you game) appears as an ad on your page, would you still skip it too?
LikeLike
Hi there, thank you for your comment! I’m glad that you share the same sentiment with me as to occasionally avoiding advertisements on Google. I agree as well that newer startups and unpopular brands have no choice but to raise their brand awareness through means such as paid advertising. It is indeed a hurdle they have to overcome when it comes to people like us who form negative perceptions about paid advertising. I do think that overall, such ads would still allow for brand recognition and should they have competitive advantages for their product, their brand perceptions would form positively soon enough.
When I stumble across advertisements from known brands such as Razer, I would definitely glance at it to see what they are promoting. It is probably due to them already being an established brand. I would however only purchase products from them if I were to need one, as it is a relatively high-involvement purchase.
LikeLike