What Ads Types Are Most “Helpful”? Search Ads Follow Newspapers, TV

Trade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most “helpful” and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data.

Most helpful in making purchase decisions:

• 37 percent say that television ads are most helpful
• 17 percent say newspaper ads are most helpful
• 14 percent say search engine ads are helpful
• Radio ads (3 percent) and Internet banner ads (1 percent) are not considered helpful by many people
• 28 percent say that none of these types of advertisements are helpful to them in the purchase decision making process

Ad types that people ignore:

• 46 percent say they tend to ignore Internet banner ads
• 17 percent ignore search ads
• 13 percent ignore TV ads
• 9 percent ignore radio ads
• 6 percent ignore newspaper ads

One in ten Americans say they do not ignore any of these types of ads. Interestingly, younger survey respondents tended to find search ads less helpful than older users and ignored them more. That’s a bit counter-intuitive.

Here are the data segmented by age and geography: