Mediaboss Marketing

Dive Brief:

ASCI's report underscores how a negative view toward the media online can ultimately impact overall customer satisfaction. This point is becoming increasingly pertinent for marketers as divided political times inevitably lead to stronger waves of consumer backlash and increase the demand for things like advertiser boycotts of websites that don't align with a particular audience's viewpoint.

In early June, it was reported that the far-right news outlet Breitbart had lost 90% of its advertisersover a three-month period, reflecting the growing power of grassroots movements like Sleeping Giants, which targeted and called out brands that still appeared on the site. For brands that continue to support and advertise on sites that prove divisive and, stemming from that, cause dissatisfaction that dissatisfaction might then grow to impact their e-businesses.

ASCI highlighted changing reader perceptions of news and opinion websites that are starting to lose some of the glow they gained during the most recent U.S. election season. In contrast, this year saw drops among all the largest websites, hurting customer satisfaction with the overall internet news and opinion category down 1.3% to a score of 75.

Another interesting point brought up by the ASCI report is the view on social media. Even as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter increasingly become the lead aggregators and disseminators of news online, their impact on the e-biz space has remained relatively stable, or at least hasn't harmed customer satisfaction as signifcantly.

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Study: Customer dissatisfaction with internet news drags down e-biz index - Marketing Dive