Image source: Pascale PirateChickan via Flickr
Intrusive online advertising is under attack by Google and Apple. Early next year, Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari browser will add new ad-blocking features. Their moves increase the importance of owned and earned media – and native advertising as well.
The next version of Safari will let users block auto-play videos and will block advertisers from tracking users after they leave their websites in order to continue serving them ads, an ability called retargeting.
Google’s Chrome browser intends to block ads that don’t meet the standards of the Coalition for Better Ads, an association of advertisers, media buyers and publishers. The group’s standards cite pop-up ads, auto-playing video ads with sound, flashing animated ads and other formats that users find particularly annoying.
A Massive Advertising Cleansing with Huge Consequences
Some pundits say Google, a CBA member, is using the CBA standards to maintain its digital advertising dominance. “My thesis is we are just at the beginning of a massive cleansing of the advertising ecosystem that will have far-reaching consequences,” says Frederic Filloux, editor of the Monday Note on Medium.
Browsers will become expert at blocking ads and more publishers will offer ad-free paid subscriptions, Filloux predicts.
Many in the content marketing and native advertising niche believe interruptive advertising is going extinct, writes content marketing specialist John Montesi in the Content Standard. Most people would get rid of advertising if they could. The number of desktop and mobile devices with ad blockers grew by 142 million worldwide to reach 615 million devices last year, a 30% increase, according to the 2017 Global Adblock Report from PageFair. A recent study by Rapt Media found that 95 percent of consumers take action to avoid seeing or receiving ads.
A Diverse Marketing Mix
With the rise of ad blockers, the marketing mix must include programmatic advertising in which software automatically matches ads with content based on bids and audience profiles, says marketing analyst Rebecca Lieb.
“But don’t bet the farm on it,” Lieb told NPR. “Marketers must increasingly augment paid campaigns with owned and earned media: content, social, PR, influencer marketing, search, and email. We’re living in a more complicated and complex world. The days of ‘buy an ad and throw it on one of only three networks’ are done.”
Discoverable Content
Native advertising, ads designed to look like editorial content, and other kinds of discoverable content that consumers find themselves may be one answer. The Rapt Media study found that 62 percent of respondents believe that content they discover themselves is personalized, even if it actually isn’t, Montesi notes. “Native content is benign and discoverable. It offers audiences a chance to find it themselves,” he argues. Facebook, Twitter and other social sharing sites, as well as publishers like The New York Times have embraced native advertising. Search engines, however, may exclude native advertising in search results. Native advertising is, after all, paid advertising even if it looks like editorial content.
Native advertising has disadvantages within the marketing mix.
It’s expensive. Native ads also face the risk violating FCC rules on disclosures if the ad doesn’t properly reveal that the content is sponsored. Consumers become disillusioned if they learn that the content is selling something and they’ll become less inclined to view other sponsored content from the brand.
Earned media – old-fashioned PR placements in media — is not impacted by ad blocking and has greater credibility than advertising. With creative development of earned media placements, both traditional and social media can communicate brand messages effectively and cost efficiently.
Bottom Line: New features of leading browsers, combined with the spread of ad blockers, may represent the death knell of interruptive online advertising. Brands will have even greater difficulty reaching consumers through online advertising. In response, more companies will turn to native advertising and a diverse range of PR strategies.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
