Oh no, not another anti ad-blocking initiative

Dominic Mills wonders whether the latest cross-industry talking shop trying to remedy ad-blocking is all hot air and no action

I’ve been suffering from withdrawal symptoms. It’s an illness journalists get when, after gorging themselves on one subject for a sustained period, they stop writing about it for a while. Political journalists will suffer after 24 June. For me, it’s adblocking.

I haven’t written about ad blocking for two months, and last month I chaired a Comscore/Mediatel breakfast debate on the dirty business of digital advertising and we didn’t even mention it. Must have been because there was so much other filthy stuff to talk about.

But I have been rescued. First, Three will some time between next Monday (13th) and the following one run a 24-hour trial in which it will block as many ads as it can (apart from those in Twitter and Facebook apps).

Apart from wondering whether Facebook and Twitter have handed over protection money to Three, I’d be interested to hear from any Three subscribers about their experience during this 24-hour period. Was it any better? Did stuff download faster? Were they denied access to any publisher sites which had detected they were using ad-blocking software? Or didn’t they notice anyway because they’re blind to mobile ads?

By the way, if you want to see why ad blocking software is so attractive, just read (or try to) this Independent story on the Three initiative.

What an unholy bloody mess of a page that is, not to mention that fucking autoplay video at the top. I’m naturally sympathetic to publishers, but that is stretching the ‘contract’ too far (aka taking the piss). It’s hard enough to consume on a desktop, let alone on a mobile [we’ve moaned about this before – Ed].

Stretching the ‘contract’: the offending Indy page

Second, we have the latest apocalyptic warning from those nice Irish folk at PageFair showing that mobile adblocking is now a bigger issue than desktop. Among other things, it says:

– At least 419m people, 22% of the user base, are blocking ads on smartphones

– Global growth in the use of ad blocking software has been 90% from January 2015 to January 2016

– In Europe and North America in March 2016 there were 14m monthly active users of ad blocking software, although penetration is higher in emerging markets

– There are now 45 different types of ad blocking software available for iOS or Android phones.

This makes grim reading, but you have to remember it is not in PageFair’s interests to downplay the impact of ad blocking.

And now, seemingly spurred on by Three and the PageFair doom-mongering, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has launched its own anti ad-blocking initiative.
[advert position=”left”]
Oh no, I thought, just what we don’t need: another cross-industry talking shop which is all hot air and no action. And worse, the WFA hasn’t even given its new thing a catchy acronym yet.

But, on reflection, I am being too hasty. It may be late to the party, but the WFA speaks for most of the biggest global advertisers, and claims they are responsible for around 90% of global marketing spend, some of which (but not all) is the crap ad blockers are trying to avoid.

At last, you think – the people at the head of the value chain (i.e. including publishers and media agencies, all of whom must bear their share of responsibility) are acknowledging there is a problem.

The best intentions of others notwithstanding, you can’t begin to solve ad blocking without the active participation of advertisers. Or indeed consumers.

Thankfully, the WFA’s approach recognises this, since it also appears to be taking an empirical approach based on actual, rather than claimed, consumer behaviour. Here’s what it says:

“It is essential that any action will have at its heart the consumer experience. WFA is working with third parties to identify granular data around formats, frequencies and the volume of advertising which people will no longer accept. The findings will differ by demographics and geographies, although there are likely to be some commonalities in terms of what triggers people to block ads.”

Which sounds great except that, of course, by the time consumers have installed an ad blocker it’s a bit too late to find out why.

Apart from that, the WFA wants to convene a coalition of relevant parties – i.e. publishers, advertisers, ad-tech suppliers and media agencies – to formulate a set of standards that can apply globally, but also taking account of local differences.

This is fine, although I would suggest they also need to add consumers – if they can find the right ones – and the ad blockers to their grand coalition.

The words of the former US president Lyndon Johnson are relevant here. “It’s better to have your opponents inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in,” he noted.

It’s clear that assembling the right people, and getting them to agree on at least a minimum set of standards is no easy task, let alone doing it fast enough before it’s too late, but we should wish the WFA all the best.

If nothing else, I’m taking heart from the fact that the advertisers have recognised they are both part of the problem and part of the solution. As Barack Obama said of US involvement in Iraq, “if you break it, you own it.” And advertisers have certainly been one of the parties to fracture the digital eco-system.