Recently, an agency expressed concerns about the viability of Digital advertising. their annual report says the effectiveness of the digital investments is impaired by problems with the integrity of digital supply including fraud, viewability and measurement. Their Futures Director went on to say that “The rise in consumer adoption of ad blocking technology violates the inferred consumer contract with content owners which enables advertising investment to support content development. For this reason, and its potential to inhibit brands’ ability to reach their audiences, it merits close study and preventative measures.”
With few exceptions, Digital display advertising is more or les DR. First of all the “problem” with display ads is that nobody looks at them. But what They are referring to is the fact that over 250,000,000 consumers now use Ad Blocking software, like Ghostery, Privacy Badger or AdBlock Plus, which helps keep their digital lives from being compromised. Explanation:
The issue is often framed as “ad blocking” but the real issue is “tracking protection”. In between an Internet user and advertiser, there could be more than 100 middlemen — tracking companies, data brokers and advertising networks — competing to meet the growing demand for data on individual behavior and interests. Folks might be perfectly fine being shown ads that are not based on tracking, but the problem is there’s no way to tell; the Digionista have touted tracking as their unique selling prop too loudly for too long.
Also, there is no “violation of the inferred consumer contract with content owners”. This is the sound of adTech smoking its own exhaust. Sorry, but the onus is not on the consumer to justify why they are exercising their right to privacy, but on the marketer that is spying on them in order to blast them with ads that slow down their browser and use up their data and battery life while deciding which ads to serve that are
A) creepy the 1% of the time they are calibrated correctly
B) ignored the other 99% of the time
C) unwanted 100% of the time
We should begin to see ad spend come back to Traditional Media and their digital assets. That’s the direction of the Future.
