When it comes to where ads show up, marketers and consumers have different preferences

Marketers and the people they want to reach aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye when it comes to where ads show up, according to Kantar’s latest Media Reactions report.

The study is based on research conducted among about 16,000 consumers and 900 senior marketers around the world. This year, it revealed a “significant contrast” between the ad channels and platforms preferred by marketers and those favored by consumers, according to Kantar.

Pick your poison

For the second year in a row, consumers chose Amazon as their favorite ad platform, with most finding its ads to be “relevant and useful.”

Among marketers, however, Amazon didn’t even crack their top five: Their No. 1 pick was YouTube, which saw a 6% increase in trust among that group compared to last year.

Consumers ranked Google, TikTok, Instagram, and Spotify behind Amazon, in that order. After YouTube, marketers said they most prefer Google, Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify.

Change the channel

When it comes to media channels, consumers showed an affinity for ads that reach them via in-person experiences like events or going to the movies, aka “channels that cause the least interruption to their lives,” according to Kantar. Marketers leaned more toward newer channels.

Consumers ranked sponsored events as their most preferred channel, followed by cinema ads, out-of-home campaigns, point-of-sale assets, and digital OOH. Marketers, meanwhile, put online video in their No. 1 spot, followed by sponsored events, DOOH, video streaming ads, and online stories.

TV didn’t make the top five media channels among consumers or marketers, though it was marketers’ third pick last year. It’s down to 12th place this year, and only 6% of marketers said they’re planning to increase their TV spending next year. X also continues to lose steam among marketers, according to Kantar, with 14% saying they’ll reduce spend there in 2024.