Long-predicted, welcome to the end of ads
The death of advertising has been predicted since the advent of the web by a handful of radicals and, lately, by a growing number of media observers. I have repeatedly pointed out that it wouldn't be long before technology perfected the audience's ability to tune out anything they didn't truly want to see.
Now, some 20+ years into the web era, a new study finds a sizable portion of the world's audience—some 200 million people—has adopted sophisticated ad-blocking software to make sure they never again have to see an ad.
So if 1994 was the beginning of the end of advertising as we knew it, then 2015 is the middle of the end of ads. We're way past the beginning now and headed at a brisk pace toward the boneyard.
The New York Times tech blog BITS has the story.
Award Winning Freelance Health Creative Director/ Health Writer
9 年Hopefully it's the end of ads on the web, which never engaged the audience. Because they shouldn't have. Because they were awful. Created by a new generation of "creatives" who had, and have, no idea of how to do great advertising. In any medium. Having said that, ads in lots of other mediums, including TV - which is bigger and watched more than ever - are definitely not dead. Even though the creative bar has plummeted, those ads are still bought in a spend that dwarfs any other medium. Even done badly, they're still more effective for many brands than the alternative Anyone who says ads are dead has two motivations to say so. One, they have a stake in killing them. And two, they don't have a clue how to do great ones.
Founder and CEO, Teamstream Productions
9 年Agreed, Kirk. There is way too much legitimately great digital content being produced, far faster than we can consume it, to waste :30 or :60 watching an "ad." Don't try to sell me a Jeep just because I'm watching sports—find a way to add something to my life, or get lost.