The controversy surrounding ad blocking and its effect on the digital advertising industry shows no sign of abating. Debate was fuelled by Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale’s recent speech at the Oxford Media Convention, in which he said that ad blocking companies act as a “modern day protection racket” and that fast-growing use of software that blocks advertising “presents an existential threat to the newspaper and music industries.”
Of course, there can be no doubt that the advent of ad blocking software is a huge issue in delivering commercial messages to consumer audiences. However, we may yet look back and see blocking as the biggest boon to advertising of the last 30 years: for consumers, for the creative advertising industry and, especially, for advertising clients.
To misquote Steve Jobs, “New problems mean new solutions; tougher conditions make you fitter.”
Although we continue to develop technologies to make blocking more difficult or less likely, their usefulness will always be limited if audiences choose to skip commercial messages. And it is in considering this issue of potential audience disengagement that we can find the real way to tackle the threat of ad blocking, and to exploit more completely the creative opportunities of digital media.
We must begin by admitting that a lot of advertising deserves to be blocked - whether by active consumer choice or by software that does the job for them. If advertising intrudes on consumers in such a way that they would, given the choice, choose to switch away, the chances are that it was never going to work anyway.
Consumers have always switched away from advertising that didn’t engage them - it’s just that we didn’t know when they were doing it. At best, they just turned off mentally, letting their attention wander onto whatever struck them as more interesting at the time. Or perhaps they forgot what was being said. Or maybe who said it. At worst, they could even react against the advertising, risking investment backfiring on advertisers.
A sad truth is that a lot of advertising wastes clients’ money. But ad blocking hasn’t made that worse. In fact, it may even be in the process of tackling the problem. Lord Leverhulme was supposed to have said that half the money he spent on advertising was wasted - trouble was, he didn’t know which half. Maybe ad blocking is the way that clients are finally being shown where at least some of that money might be going: in digital advertising that consumers skip over.
So here’s where the first advantage of ad blocking comes in: at least now we can know when consumers are switching (or are switched) away from advertising.
You may say this is of small comfort to the poor client who has spent his money on wasted advertising, though at least a blocked ad can be pulled and waste limited. However, a more positive and exciting implication is that ad blocking can force us to create better and more effective advertising, provided we are willing to face and to tackle the issues.
We need to look critically at our reliance on technology that allows us to push messages in front of people. Though we can demonstrate targeting efficiency of these tools, there is a difference between clever ad placement and meaningful ad consumption. Targeting customers in an innovative way does not guarantee advertising will be effective or profitable. We risk becoming so seduced by the targeting opportunities and efficiencies digital media offer that we cease to consider adequately our consumers, what they want and, above all, the creative solution to deliver our commercial objectives.
Advertising has to become an organic part of content, enhancing digital readers’ online experience. As well as the obvious “what do we want to tell people?”, we need also to ask “what do people want to hear in this situation?”. If we can’t find an answer that matches with our commercial purposes, the solution is simple: save the money.
For commercial messaging to meet those requirements, both advertising strategy and creativity must move further upstream in the process, considering creative content, audience targeting and media placement as one whole, rather than as discrete, sequential elements.
Social media is bringing a deeper level of engagement, narratives and relationships between commercial organisations and their audiences. As commercial messages move further into that area it will increasingly seem like the consumer and the advertiser are working in tandem.
The real challenge for the creative industries may be less to fight the challenges raised by blocking than to take advantage of the real possibilities it offers - before consumers do it for us.
By Murray Chick, Freeman, The Worshipful Company of Marketors and Chairman, The Exedra
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