Ad Week and Ad Blockers – a great crisitunity for advertisers
Ad blocking should be illegal.
Ad blocking is going to kill publishing.
Ad blocking is a phase and it will pass.
Let’s a look at recent news:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ad-blocking-is-a-hot-topic-for-marketing-media-executives-1443259981
http://fortune.com/2015/09/24/apple-ad-blocking-retailer-walmart/
http://fortune.com/2015/09/23/cost-of-ad-blocking/
So what does it mean? Is the the end of the free internet? Are users really so angry about advertising and data usage policies that they are willing to pay to visit most websites?
Here’s my take: this is the fault of the ADVERTISERS AND THEIR AGENCIES, and it’s time for them to step up to the plate and accept responsibility.
First and foremost, the responsibility for this issue lies with the ADVERTISERS. Ad technology companies are facilitators of transactions and software platforms, and publishers write content. But advertisers are the ones who create terrible ads, use bandwidth-sucking creatives that overload a site ond overwhelm a user’s browser. Advertisers use the same creative across an entire media plan, not thinking about how each site is different and how creatives need to be additive to the user experience, not distracting from it. Ad agencies need to stop relying on cookies and third party data as much as they do today – they do it to deliver clicks and conversions, but clicks and conversions can be achieved through other means.
Advertisers need to step up to the plate and start a dialogue with their customers and potential customers (aka the readers on any given publisher) and help them understand that advertisers and users are the participants in this transaction that matter most. They need to remind users that advertising helped them find brands they love, brands that define who they are, and brands that could potentially change lives. But killing the platform where users discover these brands by killing ads on websites only serves to limit their chance to find a great new product, a great new piece of technology, the next great brand that they are proud to represent.
Advertisers cannot sit back act like they hate ads too, but instead lead the education of their customers around the value of advertising, how their advertising supports the content that their users read every single day.
This is a crisis for publishers indeed, but it’s an opportunity to bring everyone closer together if advertisers take responsibility for their part in creating this conversation, and an opportunity for advertisers to lead us past this conversation and come out the other side with an even stronger bridge between readers, advertisers, and publishers.