Ad Blocking Tidal Wave - How Marketers Should React
Ad blocking has certainly been in the news recently. In August, PageFair and Adobe published their 2015 Ad Blocking Report https://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/2015_report-the_cost_of_ad_blocking.pdf which points to rapid consumer adoption of ad blocking in browsers. With the release of iOS 9 September 16, Apple debuts a tool for developers that supports ad-blocking, which means iOS 9 users can find ad-blockers in the App Store to use with their Safari browsers. While the PageFair report reveals that so far, consumers have been cool to ad blocking on mobile devices (only 1.6% of PageFair ad block traffic in Q2 2015 was from mobile), the Apple announcement will likely open the floodgates to the blocking of ads in mobile browsers.
The growth of ad blocking has both near term and far term implications for marketers.
In the near term:
Will ad blocking shift media consumption to stand-alone, media branded apps? No.
Will ad blocking shift most media distribution and consumption to platform apps? Yes. (Ad blocking software does not affect in-app advertising. This gives platforms such as Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Kik, other messaging apps and specialized media apps (such as Apple News?) an advantage over media distributed via websites.)
In the long term, ad blocking is another nail in the coffin of legacy advertising theory and models. It’s clear that broad-based and even segment-targeted advertising is something consumers don’t like (Personal note, When I buy my Nike running shoes online, does it make sense to serve me ads touting more Nike running shoes the next day, week, month? I just bought a pair). Ad blocking will kill off most non-personal marketing online.
In the long term, marketers must stick to the core tenet of marketing – stay focused on the consumer value proposition. With each attempted marketing interaction, we as consumers judge whether the engagement is worth it.
In 1994, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers published their seminal book, The One to One Future, in which they formalized the concept of one-to-one marketing https://www.peppersandrogersgroup.com/view.aspx?itemid=34924 .
In this strategy, personalization of interactions is thought to create greater customer loyalty and better return on marketing investment. Twenty one years later, are we on the cusp of CRM being the focus of marketing?
I say yes. Leading the way in this new world will be mobile marketing and smartphones. Smartphones are very personal devices that can (with user’s opt-in) provide very detailed data to marketers. Hand in hand with smartphones in the new age of marketing are platforms – in the U.S., Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Kik and a host of other messaging apps. Platforms bring a unique value proposition to marketers – economies of scale and mass, as well as very nuanced analytics. Together, platforms and smartphones deliver the opportunity for marketers to reach very large audiences on a personal level.
The advertising supported business model is not going away. The value proposition to consumers, done right, is too great. Make your marketing value proposition count.
Mark Beccue is a veteran independent market research analyst and principal of Mark Beccue Consulting Inc. He specializes in the business of mobile technology as it becomes embedded in all facets of consumer’s everyday life. More at https://markbeccue.wordpress.com