Why annoying ads are also bad for the environment.

At a time when environmental awareness is at an all-time high, the majority of us make intentional efforts to lessen our carbon footprint and do our part to protect the environment. We have started saying no too plastic straws, looking for recycle labels on packaging, even started putting relevant recyclable waste into the relevant bins, all trying to do what little we can.

While the internet revolution has transformed the way majority of us communicate and consume information globally by just simply pressing some buttons, most of us rarely reflect that these are fueled by my massive data centers as well as an infrastructure designed to gobble energy.

Digital marketing undoubtedly contributes significantly to the carbon footprint of the internet, despite the frustrating lack of precise &?recent data. A 2016 study estimated that advertisements were responsible for roughly half of the data needed to read an article online, and a recent investigation by the agency Good Loop found that the average online ad campaign produces 5.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions, which is roughly the same as 13,000 miles of driving. The data-intensive auctioning process that occurs billions of times every day without an actual ad being displayed is not included, despite how enormous this number may appear to be.

Digital advertising's pace of data consumption is only likely to increase over the next few years given its current trajectory. Spending on video advertisements, which use significantly more data than image-based advertisements, increased by 79% over the previous two years. As a result, these advertisements are now largely acknowledged as being a crucial component of any marketing strategy that is future-proof. Many of the industry's cutting-edge tactics depend on computationally expensive techniques like artificial intelligence, and marketers' quick adoption of the metaverse and associated blockchain-based developments must take into account their potentially massive environmental ramifications.

This year, nearly ￡5.7 billion will be spent on programmatic display ads, accounting for nearly 90% of UK display, but just because this spend will be deployed through programmatic channels does not mean it will be wasteful. Waste is most likely to come from a variety of sources. The budget will be squandered on excessive retargeting. It will be lost on audience segments that are inaccurate or out of date. And it will be wasteful advertising to consumers who are simply not in the right frame of mind to engage. All of these factors, in addition to wasting ad budgets, degrade consumer experience and reduce trust in advertising. According to a joint ISBA and Advertising Association study, public trust in advertising has declined from around 50% in the 1990s to just 25% today. This trend must be reversed as soon as possible.

It's also crucial to take a step back and think about the larger ecosystem, of which digital advertising is a crucial component. Although the precise relationship between digital marketing and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may be challenging to measure, the industry's contribution to the widespread uptake of digital activities over the past two decades cannot be disputed. The majority of the biggest tech companies in the world largely rely on digital advertising, which forms the economic backbone of the internet, to support their operations. Over 80% of Alphabet's income comes from advertising, the holding company that includes Google and YouTube. For Meta, the recently renamed parent company of Facebook and Instagram, the proportion is considerably higher, rising to an astounding 98%. It’s no exaggeration to say that without digital advertising, the internet as we know it would simply not exist.

This reliance on advertising as a source of income has resulted in a concerted attempt by tech companies to simultaneously boost user numbers and screen time. The core of what has come to be known as the attention economy is the straightforward truth that consumers who spend more time on their devices will see more adverts. This phrase, which was initially used in the 1970s, refers to the logic that has dominated the Web 2.0 age and in which vying for people' attention is essential to success. The fundamental design decisions of many of the platforms we use are influenced by this underlying requirement. Appearing harmless features like Facebook's red notification dots or YouTube's Autoplay functionality are actually meticulously planned to draw attention and keep consumers interested for longer and longer periods of time.

Unsurprisingly, average screen time has skyrocketed as a result of these economic incentives. People in the UK now spend on average 4.8 hours per day on their smartphones, with 70% of this time being spent on social, photo and video apps. Some apps have become particularly effective at maximising time per user – YouTube and TikTok lead the way here, with the latter seeing users spending more than 24 hours per month on the app. Most interestingly, younger generations are increasingly aware that the time they spend online is not always a matter of choice. A recent study found that 66% of millennials and 70% of those in Generation Z found themselves spending more time watching user-generated content than they planned to.

This context is crucial when considering the internet's overall carbon footprint and the carbon footprint of digital marketing in particular. Since there will likely be more than 6 billion smartphone users worldwide by 2021, it is obvious that our digital habits are having a significant negative impact on the environment. Although it may not be simple, digital marketers must face the industry's participation in these trends because the attention-driven model it invented encourages the public to use data more and more.

But for this reckoning to be more than a self-flagellation exercise, it must result in actionable and constructive steps. In truth, acknowledging the carbon footprint of digital marketing doesn't have to be an uncomfortable or hasty process. Digital marketers should both actively research more efficient and interesting ways to reach their audience and help reduce the industry's ecological impact by taking a more nuanced approach to how we pique consumers' interest.

The environmental benefits of optimizing your campaigns

On the surface, shifting away from marketing strategies based on maximizing attention - whether defined in terms of reach, engagement, or another metric - may appear difficult at best and self-destructive at worst. However, in the context of broader shifts in consumer sentiment toward the industry, it appears to be a requirement. According to GroupM's "Consumer Trust in Digital Marketing" report, 37% of respondents thought digital ads were too intrusive, while 32% thought there were simply too many of them. More than a quarter of UK consumers believe digital advertising is becoming less effective, and 54% believe it is ineffective. Customers are still less positive about online ads than those delivered through offline channels, according to Kantar's 2021 Media Reactions study.

When combined with the growing use of ad blockers – 40% of people in the US now use one, according to a recent report – this is clearly cause for concern. However, if we dig deeper into the specifics of consumer preferences regarding digital advertising, we can see a more nuanced picture - one that aligns in significant ways with reducing the industry's carbon footprint.

When we examine the specific perspectives of ad block users, we discover that many are not fundamentally opposed to advertising, but rather have concerns about how advertisements can disrupt their browsing experience as well as potential privacy issues. Indeed, 63% of ad block users say they are open to "light, non-intrusive advertising." There is evidence that the general public accepts targeted advertising when they perceive it to be helpful or when they trust and support the organization or brand responsible. According to Deloitte's recent trend report, brand affinity played a significant role in how people responded to targeted ads. For example, 68% of respondents found it useful when a brand they regularly shopped with provided sales alerts, demonstrating that "established relationships are essential," as Deloitte put it.

According to Google's 2022 digital marketing predictions, relevance is now at least as important as reach. When it comes to finding and engaging with your audience, this means focusing on quality rather than quantity.

Increased emphasis on precise, data-driven targeting during campaign planning will not only help to ensure ads are genuinely useful to those who see them; it will also help to prevent unnecessary carbon emissions by not displaying ads to customers who are unlikely to respond positively to them. While this may only make a minor difference in the context of a single ad, it can quickly add up to something significant across multiple campaigns. As agencies increasingly embrace video ads and race to become metaverse-ready, the implications of even minor changes in industry practises will become increasingly important.

For the more ambitious, it is also worth considering the consequences of increased demand, which is, in theory, the goal of any marketing campaign. Purpose Disruptors is pushing the marketing industry to adopt a definition of "advertised emissions" that includes the "uplift in sales generated by advertising." They argue that by using this definition, marketers will be pushed to collaborate with greener brands in order to meet their own carbon reduction targets. While this may be a difficult step in the short term, it may become more prominent as more brands recognize the benefits of sustainability.

Sources:

Predictions 2022: The Environmental Impact of Digital Advertising - Grace Dillon

DIGITAL VS TRADITIONAL MEDIA – THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT – Target Internet

Can digital marketing confront its carbon footprint? – CASTLE

Promises and Environmental Risks of Digital Advertising - Harriet Kingaby

Green Is Good: How We Can Reduce Digital Advertising’s Hefty Carbon Footprint by Ryan Cochrane, COO at Good-Loop.

Advertising Association (2020): Ad Net Zero, All for None. www.adassoc.org.

ATAG (2020): Facts Figures. www.atag.org/facts-figures.html

Badverts (2020): Advertising’s role in climate and ecological destruction.www.badverts.org/reports-and-publications

Capgemini (2019): Why addressing ethical questions in AI will benefit organisations. www.capgemini.com/gb-en/research/why-addressing-ethicalquestions-in-ai-will-benefit-organisations/

Democracy&Digital Technology Committee (2020): Lords Select Committee. www.parliament.uk/business/lords/media-centre/house-of-lordsmedia-notices/2020/jun-20/democracy-under-threat-from-pandemicof-misinformation-online-lords-democracy-and-digital-technologiescommittee/

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