It’s the subject that just won’t go away, and it has been in the media again over the past week.
First, Three became the first mobile network to reveal it was planning to introduce ad-blocking across its network, with EE and O2 reportedly considering similar tactics.
This could potentially have a huge impact on mobile advertising distribution and, ultimately, brands ability to engage with mobile users, not to mention publishing revenues.
Three says it will only be to stop particularly bad examples, but who knows where it could end. Then the IAB’s Ad-blocking Report was launched, which indicated that the use of ad-blocking software is on the rise, with 22% of British adults admitting to using it, up from 18% in October.And so advertisers are under fire from all sides.
From a consumer point of view, they are only doing something that we’ve all wanted to do but never been able to: switch off the ads.
And it highlights a basic flaw in marketing and advertising – that in many cases ads are not relevant to the consumer they are being aimed at and are, therefore, not just annoying, which surely cannot help the brand concerned – but also ineffective.
So the message is clear. Agencies’ and brands’ approach to advertising must change.
Meanwhile, publishers should be strongly pushing for this or risk losing advertising revenues through ad-blocking’s seemingly unstoppable rise.
The route of the problem lies in the quality of content.
Traditional advertising is generally all about the sell, adding little value to the consumer experience. If more brands embraced the concept of content marketing, actually delivering key insight to their customers, they would not only be offering something of actual value and interest, so boosting engagement and loyalty, but would also negate the need for ad-blocking.
Native advertising promised this, but then became a victim of its own name, with ad creative frequently being used instead of relevant high quality branded content that would sit seamlessly beside editorial. Enter the introduction of native standards in the US and UK last year.
So are we back to square one?
Not quite.
Technology now exists that delivers the insight to allow agencies and brands to determine the kind of content consumers are looking for and then deliver it programmatically to the editorial page at the right time, capitalising on both content and moment marketing.
All agencies and brands need to do is create the right content in order to not only drive more engagement and loyalty than traditional advertising ever will, but also stop the need for ad-blocking.
Welcome to the new ‘advertising’ reality. But who’s going to take the first step?
By Nick Brown, founder and CEO of Avid Global Media
Originally posted WallBlog 9 March 2016