![]() ![]() Our biggest issue is with retargeting – that’s when things get really intrusive and damage the user experience. Personalisation and targeting can be good as it helps with relevancy. We want to force online advertising to be more creative. He advises: “At the end of the day, brands have to put more pressure on publishers and agencies to deliver advertising that isn’t against the user but on the side of the user. AdBlock Plus’ chairman Tim Schumacher believes the software can reach 100% of millennials “Frankly, I see this practice as benefiting their owners possibly even at the expense of consumers,” he wrote, adding: “If Adblock Plus publicly stated which companies were paying them for white-listing ads and the terms under which this was happening, then my level of trust would increase dramatically.”īut ultimately, Schumacher says Ad Block Plus is on the side of brands just as much as consumers. Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, recently wrote an open letter expressing concerns with the way AdBlock Plus makes its money. This vetting system, or the Acceptable Ads programme as it is known internally, has been incredibly divisive among big brands. “If we white-list a certain ad format, it then goes onto the community forum and sits there for seven days so the people can decide too.” We don’t judge ‘is this a good ad or does this look nice?’ but ‘is it the right format and the right content?’ Schumacher even admits that AdBlock Plus’s validation process for what constitutes as a ‘bad ad’ still largely involves subjective assessments from staff. Policing marketers and publishers sounds like a tricky job. Online doesn’t have the same regulation to ensure that same balance, so that’s how we see our role at AdBlock Plus.” Nowadays, on average, only 25% of TV content is advertising. It took television 25 years to find the right balance between content and advertising. It just doesn’t happen because it isn’t intrusive and it is mostly great storytelling.” Tim Schumacher, chairman of AdBlock Plus “People don’t take a print publication like Vogue and rip out all of the advertising pages in anger. ![]() But that example, he says, is where the biggest problem with online marketing can be located. In fact, he waxes lyrical about the artistic nature of adverts found in magazines such as Vogue. It might come as a surprise to some but Schumacher is a great lover of advertising. Young people are AdBlock Plus’s primary audience and I believe we have the potential to hit 100% of millennials.” AdBlock Plus is pro-advertising Among the better educated and tech-savvy, we have the potential to reach huge numbers. “There’s certainly universal frustration. “What we’re seriously asking ourselves right now is: could ad blocking ever be something every online user on the planet uses?” he poses. Yet Schumacher believes the tool, which is also available to download on Apple and Android app stores, is just “scratching the surface”. Having been downloaded more than 400 million times on desktop and with 60 million active global users, Adblock Plus, created by coder Michael McDonald, proudly boasts of its status as the “most popular browser extension tool for blocking annoying online ads”. But when you share this nugget of information with Tim Schumacher, chairman of AdBlock Plus developer Eyeo, he just shrugs his shoulders. Research by consultancy PageFair puts the number of active ad blocker users in the UK at 12 million, and suggests ad blocking will cost publishers worldwide around $22bn in 2015. Nearly half (48%) cite ‘interference’ as the primary driver behind their decision to screen out website advertising. It’s strikingly clear that as marketers have gone digital, consumers have turned to ad blocking tools.Īt the latest count, 18% of British adults are users ad-blocking software, according to November’s Ad Blocking Report from the Internet Advertising Bureau and YouGov. ![]()
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