69% or people said they were interested in ways to block, skip or opt out of being exposed to advertising

51st annual convention of the American Research Foundation, written up in the NY Times

"...  another executive who is to speak today at the conference is J. Walker Smith, president at Yankelovich Partners, the market research company.

"When marketers wrestle with their media budgets, trying to decide whether to use traditional media like TV or take some of those dollars and put them into new media like the Internet, the debate is pushing us in the wrong direction," Mr. Smith said in an interview last week.

"The real issue in re-engaging consumers is good marketing practices versus bad marketing practices," he added. "We have to change the way we practice, regardless of the media."

Mr. Smith is to present the results of a survey on receptivity to marketing, updating one he conducted last year. That survey, presented at the 2004 management conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, generated considerable discussion on its findings that negative consumer perceptions of advertising had significantly increased, making the tasks of advertisers and agencies considerably harder.

"There are those looking for the new media to be the saviors for advertising," Mr. Smith said, "but we can use the new media to be ever more intrusive and saturating, creating ever more clutter."

That may be a reason for the new survey's finding that "there are still a lot of things consumers don't like about advertising," he added. "There probably hasn't been as much progress in changing that as we think."

For instance, 56 percent of survey respondents said they avoided buying products that overwhelmed them with advertising, up slightly from the 54 percent who said so in the 2004 survey. And 69 percent said they were interested in ways to block, skip or opt out of being exposed to advertising, the same percentage as in the survey last year.

All is not lost for Madison Avenue, however, the survey suggests, because respondents said they valued advertising that they could choose to see "when it is most convenient"; when it was personally communicated "by friends and experts I trust"; when it was "customized to fit my specific needs and interests"; or provided useful information about competitive brands and products.

Still, Mr. Smith said, negative consumer attitudes toward advertising "remain the single biggest barrier to improving return on investment for marketing spending.

"Until we get better at engaging consumers," he added, "they're going to continue to push back and resist what advertisers are trying to deliver to them."