Consumers who pay attention to protecting their personal rights and interests, it is difficult to miss the annual consumer "Spring Festival Gala" - the 315 party.
However, from the moment the TV is turned on, the rights of about 300 million consumers across the country have been violated - dozens of seconds of on-off advertisements.
This is a long-standing "stubborn disease" in the smart TV industry, but there is a tendency for bad money to drive out good money, and manufacturers "fall" one by one.
Not only on the "315" Rights Protection Day, but in the past days, many consumers have continued to complain.
"Watching TV is supposed to be relaxing, but when you turn it on, you watch the ad first, but you can't turn it off. You can't escape the ads in the mobile app, but you can't escape here. What's more frightening is that the ads are getting longer and longer, at first ten seconds. , and then tens of seconds and a minute, there may be a time when a sprint race is over."
On social media platforms, you can often see all kinds of complaints from consumers about smart TV switching advertisements: whether they are sports enthusiasts eager to watch live games, children waiting to watch anime, or middle-aged and elderly people who are not familiar with the Internet. For users, this terrible experience that the switch advertisement cannot be skipped is a refresh of the lower limit of endurance time and time again.
It's no wonder that some people miss the old TVs of the past, and they can switch on and off with one button.
A smart TV that integrates rich content from the Internet should not be so complicated, and it should not make people wait too long.
Another year is 3.15 International Consumer Rights Day. This time, the theme of the CCTV 3.15 party is "Fair and Righteous, Safe Consumption", that is, fair, reasonable, equal and assured consumption.
The switch advertisements allow consumers to passively accept the content they do not want to see, which violates fairness and integrity, and does not mean peace of mind.
Why does the switch advertisement become smart TV "psoriasis"
When smart TVs were not yet popular, the way we remembered was very simple and rude. Pick up the remote control on the coffee table and you can turn it on with one key.
But in the era of smart TVs, when some TVs are turned on, they are not TV programs, but advertising content ranging from a few seconds to tens of seconds.
When the user has just found the button to close the ad, the ad is finished.
The savvy TV manufacturer has made another profit on advertising clicks.
For the audience, the so-called smart technology did not bring the beautiful experience it should have.
On a consumer service platform, enter keywords such as "TV, boot advertisement", and find 172 results.
Some users said that the TV was turned on and off with one button after buying it back, and there were no advertisements; but after a few months, the TV not only suddenly extended the on-off time, but also appeared a 15-second on-off advertisement.
In addition, there are also complaints from consumers that there seems to be a prolonged trend in the advertisements for switching machines.
"At first, I had to endure it for 10 seconds. Now it has become 15 to 20 seconds. Every time I turn the machine on and off, it's like being forced to watch an advertisement, and I'm getting more and more troubled."
In fact, before a user buys a smart TV, some salespeople are reluctant to proactively inform the system of pre-installed "switching advertisements" in order to sell the product.
Some manufacturers responded after receiving complaints from consumers that the switch advertisement is pre-installed in the system and cannot be cancelled.
Article 44 of the "Advertising Law" clearly states: "Using the Internet to publish and send advertisements shall not affect the normal use of the Internet by users. Advertisements published in the form of pop-ups on Internet pages should be clearly marked with a closing sign to ensure one-click closing."
But the reality is that the user searched for a long time in the system settings, but did not find the closing function of the advertisement.
Some consumers even said that many advertising messages were extremely misleading.
"The information conveyed by many switch advertisements does not seem to be reliable." This is for some elderly viewers who have no strong awareness of prevention, who have just broken away from the exaggerated TV shopping bombing of traditional TV, and easily fall into switch advertisements." trap".
The negative impact of switching on and off advertising can be small or large, but in any case, it should not be a reason for consumers to resist smart TVs, nor can it become an obstacle to the orderly and healthy development of the smart TV industry.
Regulators have paid attention to it many times, and authoritative media have repeatedly exposed it, but this "psoriasis" cannot be removed. The reason behind it is the high advertising profits.
Manufacturers earn 2.6 billion advertising fees a year, and consumers are "wool"
With the rich Internet content ecology and the large-scale investment of technology companies, the smart TV market has maintained rapid growth.
At present, the number of users covered by smart TVs in China has exceeded 300 million, and there is a trend of continuous expansion. Smart TVs have long been a staple in the home.
In the early days when the Internet invaded traditional industries, it was often necessary to capture a large number of users through lower prices.
The result of the price reduction is that consumers profit from the price, but relatively, the profit of the manufacturer has decreased from thick to thin.
The so-called "wool comes from the sheep", the profit has become thinner, where to make it up?
As a result, the "switching machine advertisement" was targeted like this.
What's more, some manufacturers have embedded advertisements on the dazzling TV UI interface.
According to data, the scale of domestic Internet advertisements was close to 550 billion yuan last year, and system advertisements including on-off advertisements could bring in 2.6 billion yuan in revenue for related manufacturers.
In October 2021, the "Large-screen TV Pain Point Report" released by Consumer Reports showed that switching on and off advertising has become the "number one pain point" for consumers.
Regarding the negative comments on advertisements, consumers are mainly reflected in three aspects: poor experience, long time, and inability to close.
Of all the domestic and foreign TV manufacturers surveyed, only Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, Honor, and LG have no advertisements.
Then, the People's Network Finance Research Institute released the "2021 Smart TV Switching Advertising Research Report", and the relevant data also pointed out that advertising has seriously affected the consumer experience.
More than 89.9% of the respondents said that their smart TVs contain "switching advertisements", and only 10% of them do not have switch advertisements;
86.1% of the manufacturers did not set up a "one-click cancel/close button" for the on/off advertisement; 84.9% of the respondents found out that there was an on/off advertisement when they used it, and only 9.6% of the respondents knew about it before purchasing.
It is worth mentioning that the data shows that the five items that respondents value most when choosing smart TVs are "picture quality", "price", "after-sales service", "whether there is a switch advertisement" and "sound quality", accounting for 85.3% and 72.2% respectively. %, 59.1%, 55.6% and 49.5%.
Whether there is a switch advertisement has become a very important factor for consumers to purchase products.
This kind of money-making model is to "snatch wool" from consumers, which not only damages the experience of consumers watching TV itself, but also allows pervasive advertisements to break into the home space.
The distorted profit model not only tramples on the rights and interests of consumers, but also does not forget to pour the dirty water of "cheap" on consumers.
In fact, without discussing the high-priced products of Sony and other manufacturers, the price of the Honor smart screen without advertising is lower, and has won many objective and horizontal evaluations in the technology media.
Manufacturers cannot be "fair and righteous", how can consumers "consume with peace of mind"?
According to the latest data released by Aowei Cloud, in February this year, the scale of retail sales on color cables dropped by 17.6% year-on-year.
There are many reasons for the dilemma of the decline in smart TV sales, but the poor user experience is not innocent, including the switch advertising.
As a product for which the right to use has been fully vested in consumers, consumers have the final say on what they see, what they experience, and whether there can be an on-off advertisement.
Technology is good, and the original intention of TV practitioners cannot be changed
Technological changes have produced more cool products, but services and experience have not changed.
When TV manufacturers only focus on technological profitability and ignore user experience, technology loses its original intention of creating a better life.
Consumers will eventually vote with money to support products that focus more on user experience, allowing good money to drive out bad money.
On the other hand, in the domestic TV industry, we need manufacturers like Glory to dare to break the chaos of the industry and "run in reverse".
In an exclusive interview with the People's Meeting Room last year, Honor CEO Zhao Ming said, "We are the first company in China that proposes no advertisements for switching on and off, and one of the manufacturers that still insists on switching on and off smart screens without advertisements. The core values of our company are Consumer-centric." Impresses a lot of people.
It's not easy to stick to no-switch ads.
The reason why the chaos of switching machine advertisements is repeated is that it has indeed brought a lot of benefits to many manufacturers.
On the other hand, Glory says, "I will stand still if I have the wind from east to west." Since the creation of the smart screen category in 2019, it has been practicing the concept of "switching on and off without advertising".
Taking the Honor Smart Screen X2 series released in September last year as an example, in addition to continuing the feature of switching on and off without advertisements, it also performed well in terms of product capabilities such as audio and picture quality, multi-screen collaboration, and smart interconnection.
1.07 billion color wide color gamut full color screen, high color depth, 92% DCI-P3 wide color gamut, 2*10W independent large sound chamber, plus professional sound effect algorithm tuning, can bring consumers an immersive "home theater" level" enjoyment.
Moreover, the full screen has passed the double certification of German Rhine non-flicker and low blue light eye protection, and DC dimming is adopted throughout the whole process, which is eye-catching and eye-protecting.
And multi-screen collaboration is Honor's consistent technical long-term board. Honor's self-developed Cast+ screen projection protocol enables Honor Smart Screen X2 to easily and quickly collaborate with multiple devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and notebooks for game entertainment, office sessions, and graphic creation. And other complex scene requirements can be met.
Good products can speak. At the 7th Responsible Consumption Forum, Honor Smart Screen won the "2021 Responsible Product Award" as a new product in the industry with the value of "consumer first", excellent technical level and product quality.
The so-called responsible consumption means that consumers should make their consumption behaviors have a positive impact on future life, and adhere to a "responsible" attitude in the consumption process, so as to promote production and provide products that are more in line with the healthy and long-term development of the industry.
Obviously, the Honor Smart Screen can afford it.
As a pioneer in the industry leading the trend of no advertisements and a fellow traveler who thinks about consumers, the non-advertising of the Honor Smart Screen is only the first step to be fair and upright, so that consumers can consume with peace of mind and promote technology for good, more TV manufacturers need to be involved. , There is a long way to go and a long way to go.