Jonathan Adams
Chief Digital Officer, Maxus Americas
This is just the beginning of the conversation around Ad Blocking – as this is a growing area of focus for both Maxus and GroupM.
Jonathan Adams discusses Ad Blocking and what it means for clients and publishers as part of our Change Briefing series.
What’s Changed
The recent debate over ad blockers (and their impact on the digital media industry) reached fever pitch at Advertising Week last week in New York. Agency leaders, marketers and publishers raised the issue on nearly every panel — making it the greatest #trendingtopic of the week-long event. The wide sweeping concern stems from the new rise of mobile-web ad blocking — triggered last month with Apple’s release of iOS 9 which includes a default-on ad blocker within its Safari mobile web browser.
Historically, ad blockers have only been available as browser extensions on desktop, however Apple’s release raised concerns regarding blocking mobile ads as well, across the mobile web, and even apps in the near future.
What the Change Means
According to some sources, nearly $22 billion worth of advertising has been blocked so far in 2015 through desktop ads. iOS 9 is now expected to disrupt some of the $70 billion annual mobile marketing business as well, but it is not clear just yet by what degree. The Safari browser has a 25% share of all mobile web browsing — a share which could put some publishers and ad tech companies out of business.
In addition to the release of iOS 9, Ad Block Plus just announced the release of their new mobile app that can block ads within their own mobile-web browser. The Ad Block Plus App — now available for both Android and Apple phones — is a mobile-web browser app, just like Safari or Chrome, which promises to block ads from websites you visit.
The bottom line, however, is that Ad Blocking is growing and marketers and agencies will have to be aware of:
• The challenge it creates for publishers: reducing ad inventory a given website or publisher can sell — heavily threatening the ad-supported-web business model of today
• The challenges it creates for marketers: such as reducing available ad inventory among younger, male audiences (for example).
NOTE: Ad blocking nearly always completely blocks the ad call — so clients will not pay for ads that were blocked. Therefore, this is essentially not a “Viewability topic”, but rather an “ad delivery topic” (eg: will my campaign reach all the people I am budgeting to reach?).
Implications Of The Change For Advertisers
This is just the beginning of the conversation around Ad Blocking – as this is a growing area of focus for both Maxus and GroupM. We will continue to surface both technical and content-rich solutions, which can help our clients continue to invest in digital channels with confidence.
NOTE: Neither the iOS 9 updates to Safari, or the Ad Block Plus App currently work in the mobile app environment — where many mobile ads are served today.
What marketers can do today:
1. Embracing “non-blocked ad units” such as native ads.
2. Advertising within “non-blocked” ad environments, including mobile apps such as Facebook and more (or potentially on websites which have added new pay-walls for “ad blockers” such as WashingtonPost.com).
3. Creating and distributing original/branded content (also not blocked).
4. Targeting “around AB users” by being conscious of most common demos, environments and sites which commonly get blocked.
5. Serving and measuring via a proper mobile ad server: ensure that mobile impressions are counted correctly — by employing an accredited third party mobile ad server (e.g. Medialets).
