How to Tackle the Emerging Culture of Adblocking

As Adweek Europe unfolds today in London's Picturehouse Central, director Bob Wootton from the industry's Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) talks to shots about the changing face of adblocking, ahead of his talk at the event tomorrow.

As low quality online ads continue to prey on consumers, it's no wonder that many opt to downloading adblocking software. Yet Wootton suggests some ways in which the industry can move forward. Although he is due to leave ISBA after the week's worth of planned industry events, Wootton's wise words hold substantial weight given his 20 years of experience at the organisational body.

Adblocking is a big threat to the online ad industry and it could impact all forms of advertising.

Let’s be frank. As an industry, we’ve made a right hash of online advertising. We’ve done almost everything we could to disenfranchise the very people we seek to reach and persuade.

Targeted messages are sometimes accurate, but sadly not as much as is universally-claimed by the endless hype and tech sales evangelism.

Too often, the ads themselves are poor and rarely suited to the channel they use because let’s be honest, it’s costly and time-consuming to make myriad ads for each platform.

And let’s think about frequency of exposure. There’s very few caps on how often consumers will see ads.

Most advertisers will retarget online - which consumers describe as being stalked by something they’ve just bought. Retargeting is seldom well-practiced and is usually justified because it’s dirt cheap.

These forms of advertising are compounded onto mobiles, which now account for 50 percent of browsing. Ads monopolise small screens, using up battery life and data allowance.

The industry is currently under serious threat by this low value exchange. Viewers are used to tolerating advertising in return for subsidised or free content.

It used to be almost impossible to block ads, however annoying you might have found them. Nowadays, all you have to do is search the web for ‘adblocker’ and click to download. It takes seconds.

No wonder almost one in five people, including myself, look to block ads, according to the IAB.

So, in reality a lot of the money spent online is wasted and advertisers have to spend even more to reach their elusive targets. Yet spend they continue to do, often irrationally. There’s little incentive for the industry to tidy up its act if the money continues to pour in.

Once installed, ad blockers are indiscriminate, taking out the good with the bad. They threaten publishers’ already challenged revenues and compromise the creation of quality content.

As people become even more used to blocking ads, this approach is likely to spread to other channels. Everything from page-flipping press ads to ad-skipping on TV will inevitably become more prevalent.

Geico has created a series of tongue-in-cheek adverts to tackle the skippable culture that consumers have got used to.

So, what’s the solution?

Every link in the value chain must play its part. Advertisers need to take responsibility for leadership and invest better and more smartly. Creative agencies should improve content and reduce file sizes. Data plays should reduce the current bloated tag load substantially.

Publishers need to decrease ad loads and deny quality content to viewers using adblockers as well as stop accepting ‘bribes’ from adblocking companies.

Will this be enough? Who knows, but without a concerted effort, our prospects are limited.