Banners appearing in seemingly insignificant places on a mobile phone, a video suddenly starting to play on the refrigerator door, or a commercial that automatically plays on the screen five minutes after you turn on the ambient lighting.
These examples are significant in demonstrating that marketing has now transcended certain boundaries and is striving to expand beyond the traditionally established channels.
Smart home technologies are already widespread and will become even more so in the future. Refrigerators, stoves, and even robot vacuums are starting to display ads we might be interested in, along with the first steps taken by Samsung and LG, raise questions about whether every screen in the home will become billboards.
In these days when smart assistants can fill carts for groceries, will the brand with the most screen space be included in our shopping carts?
Is this really the future of smart homes?
Consumer attitudes toward ads
While ads may seem to bother some consumers, a 2024 IAB survey found that a large majority of respondents said they preferred seeing ads to paying for them. This finding also suggests that most people are accustomed to using free services in exchange for ads.
It’s a bit simplistic to consider ads’ place in the user experience solely as a revenue source; ads have become a key driver of platform loyalty. Consumers, especially those listening to music or watching a video, find it annoying when the stream suddenly stops and an ad intervenes. A similar percentage also agrees that websites and apps are free thanks to ads.
This finding suggests that most people are accustomed to using free services in exchange for ads.
On the other hand, there’s a segment of the population that prefers ads to be more aligned with the content rather than eliminated entirely. Younger audiences between the ages of 25 and 34 are more likely to accept ads as a natural part of the content experience, while older audiences find them annoying.
This new generation’s approach to content-aligned advertising is leading platforms not only to purge ads entirely but also to align ads and embed them within the product itself.
Putting everything aside, the main situation to be discussed here is that the consumer sees advertising on a product for which he has already paid, and this points to a different kind of ethical problem.
An overlooked detail: The principle of fair trade
From a consumer perspective, I expect a product I buy today to be ad-free. Not by default, but entirely.
For example, when it’s a mobile phone or tablet, I’m used to seeing ads within the third-party apps I install on it, and I don’t deny it. Furthermore, I don’t think I’d want ads to appear by default in the app I need to keep my phone running, on the TV or robot vacuum cleaner I bought for my home, or even on the screen on the refrigerator, even if I haven’t installed any additional apps.
Returning to the MIUI example, these ads which run integrated with the software core, are embedded within the device’s core applications. The possibility that these ads are collecting device usage habits is among the most significant reasons why the odds are stacked against Xiaomi.
In Samsung’s example, the refrigerator must be connected to the internet for ads to be displayed thus it is opening a door to data collecting for advertisers. I don’t know how personal you would consider the inside of a refrigerator, but seeing content on your personal space without your knowledge and providing your data for this purpose can create trust issues.
Beyond this, the principle of fair trade is the most overlooked criterion. Although Samsung stated that the advertisements on the refrigerator screen were a pilot program, a manufacturer that initially gave the impression of selling a product without advertising should have disclosed its plans to later include ads within the product from the outset.
For consumer rights, it’s crucial to clearly state that advertising is included in the product. Otherwise, opening the box of a product I purchased means the product I found isn’t what I bought. If I’d known it would contain advertising, I might have avoided purchasing the product or negotiated the price.
For further read…
- Family Hub: Samsung’s smart refrigerators display advertisement on their screens
- What 923M subscriptions tell us about the Future of Digital Media in 2025
- Streaming growth now driven by ad tiers, not ad-free plans
- How platforms are balancing ads, subscriptions and viewer demands
- Why ad experience is now central to streaming success
- Virtual product placement: The future of seamless advertising
