Obnoxious Advertisements: Who Do They Really Benefit?

Repetition is one of the many marketing tactics that businesses use in order to keep their products and services easily remembered by consumers. If I said, "Like a good neighbor..." or "Geico. Fifteen minutes..." I am positive that anyone with a television could finish the statements with the proper slogans for the two popular insurance companies. They are clear and concise, and they tend to conclude their witty, 30-second commercials. These companies use repetition to their advantage, however, others across other platforms, cannot say the same.

Spotify, the popular digital music streaming service, has both free and premium versions of their application. Their free version is paid for by various sponsors who place advertisements to promote their products periodically between songs or when the listener uses one of the coveted 5 skips per hour. I used the free version of Spotify for about a year before breaking down and purchasing the ad-free subscription. This was not because of the presence of the ads, but the constant repetition of the same, horrendously annoying ads that I could not seem to ignore anymore.

The most obnoxious of them all was the Fuze tea ad with Mr. T. He almost blew out my speakers when he came on every 12 minutes yelling about how fresh both he and Fuze were. The more the advertisement played, the more I began to resent Fuze, and I concluded that I would never purchase the tea because I was so irritated with their ads ruining my relaxing playlist of evening acoustics. Their repetitious advertisements caused me to act completely opposite of what Mr. T and his marketing team wanted from me.

c/o The Coca-Cola Company

Naturally following my rage and disdain for this butterfly man and his tea, I purchased a $4.99/month subscription for Spotify Premium (shoutout to that student discount) without a single regret. The business promoting themselves on Spotify ironically turned me away from their product and in turn benefitted Spotify with additional revenue from my premium subscription.

Don't thank me, Spotify. Thank your obnoxious sponsors.