Q. While watching videos on You Tube, one often encounters ads that are damn irritating. Invariably, you end up using the “Skip Ad” button. I feel this is the other side of digital marketing – a “push” based aggressive approach instead of a “pull” based approach. Why do some companies insist on deploying such marketing tactics knowing full well that it can turn out to be counterproductive ?

27 Dec Q. While watching videos on You Tube, one often encounters ads that are damn irritating. Invariably, you end up using the “Skip Ad” button. I feel this is the other side of digital marketing – a “push” based aggressive approach instead of a “pull” based approach. Why do some companies insist on deploying such marketing tactics knowing full well that it can turn out to be counterproductive ?

This again relates to my earlier answer on paid vs organic marketing. With digital marketing prominently in the hands of a few top platforms, whose main objective is revenue, this ‘push based’ approach is increasingly becoming a challenge where the platforms need to earn and at the same time manage customer expectations of commerce-free services being pushed to them. I would see this tussle playing out even more. The problem is more pronounced for brands which need such platforms to advertise and even with the most creative ads, they are still into the interruption advertising mode. I believe ‘Native Advertising’ is the best answer to this problem wherein brands should think of native placements for their ads to place the brand within the story line of the video itself which will make it more prominent and less obtrusive. Influencer marketing will score here again by weaving the brand in their social posts, videos, etc for a more pull based marketing which will be accepted more favorably.