Beating the blockheads: reasons to be cheerful part 1

Dispatches from the front lines of the ad-blocking war, part one of two: The Coalition for Better Ads. By ISBA’s Mark Finney.

I know what you’re thinking: oh no, not another ad-blocking article. Why can’t someone come up with software to block this content, as they have for anything relating to the Kardashians?

Listen, this is a serious business. This is a war between two industries: the ad-blocking business and the advertising industry. Ad-blocking is an existential threat to advertising and a huge problem for business. It is a threat to media owners, who provide our news and entertainment and so it’s an issue affecting each and every one of us. I’m not sure who’s side you’re on, but I’m with the ad industry.

The ad-blocking businesses (the “forces of darkness”) are opportunistic, exploitative and heading for a fall. In the first part of this two-part article, I’ll set the scene and outline the Coalition for Better Ads’ part in the fight.

The forces of darkness seem to be in retreat: AdBlock Plus (ABP), the main player, seems to be on the backfoot. A German publisher has at last won a legal victory against it (after a string of failed attempts); none of its tech partners want to work with them; and even Alexander Hanff, the self-appointed champion of user privacy has gone missing.

On a related note, Three has abandoned its plans to introduce opt-in ad-blocking at network level, allegedly because the idea upset Google and Ofcom.

Hasn’t ad-blocking plateaued? You wish…

There have been some suggestions that ad-blocking growth has plateaued in the UK (if not elsewhere), but this is merely wishful thinking, as if a cold snap means global warming is over.

There is evidence of a latent majority of late-adopters that are either unaware of the possibility of blocking ads, or just don’t know how to do it. These reports from PageFair and DazeInfo in the US show the scary extent of the problem worldwide.

It could be worse. Oh wait, it’s worse…

Whilst ad-blocking is the user’s choice it will grow slowly and organically, however when it is imposed on them the numbers mushroom. Ad-blocking is surging is the APAC region for this very reason 93% of the world’s ad-blockers live here.

UC Browser has a 55% share of the mobile web browser market in India and it now comes with an ad-blocker built in. It is possible that if this approach gains traction with consumers it might spread to other browsers who will be forced to incorporate this feature in order to compete.

Although, it is hard to imagine Google doing this, given the size and scale of its ad business and its involvement with the Better Ads Coalition.

Please stop talking about “Viral Advertising”

Another emerging threat (in my mind, if nowhere else) is the possible entrance into the ad-blocking space by anti-virus software companies. Ad-blockers do provide some protection against malware but advertising and viruses are very different things, despite the industry’s obsession with “virality”.

I suggest we all immediately stop using such words in connection with advertising in case it gives anyone the wrong idea. Again, all it would take is for one of the players (Norton, McAfee, or BullGuard) to introduce ad-blocking to gain competitive advantage before they all follow suit.

Advertising on porn sites is a likely key driver of ad-blocking

Much has been written about bad advertising being the cause of ad-blocking (some of it by me). The Coalition for Better Ads aims to tackle this problem by evaluating and improving the consumer online advertising experience. Some think the venture is bound to fail, as Mark Ritson argues in this article. He argues, it isn’t just bad advertising that drives people to block advertising, but all advertising.

I am a big fan of his writing, but I think he gets a few things wrong. People do not hate all advertising (except for the privacy nerds haunting the ad-blocking forums) and I think it highly unlikely ads on premium publisher sites are cause of ad-blocking, but the advertising experience in the seamier (and steamier) places on the web.

Visitors to porn and gambling sites experience an advertising assault of unrelenting ferocity and nastiness (or so I’ve heard) – abstinence or ad-blocking are the only sensible options. The influence of porn on online and mobile behaviour cannot be underestimated.

If you are still labouring under the delusion that the internet is about sharing the world’s knowledge, or some other lofty notion, you may find this article in the Huffington post somewhat depressing.

It’s about the user experience

The second thing I take issue with in Professor Ritson’s article is his dismissal of advertising’s secondary impacts on ad-blocking, such as reduced internet speed (whether real or imagined by the consumer) or because it eats up a user’s data allotment, especially on mobile.

For pay-as-you-go mobile customers with a finite data allowance it must be beyond infuriating to see it eaten up by unwanted advertising. Why would they not block it if they were offered the choice?

Google’s AMP project Accelerated Mobile Pages (one of their top priorities) aims to speed up “the mobile web [which] is a slow, clunky and frustrating experience.” The Better Ads Coalition, of which Google is an integral part, will address advertising’s part in that problem. However, it isn’t just about improving the quality of advertising, but reducing the impact it has on the user experience as a whole.

The Coalition: taking the fight to the ad-blockers?

Professor Ritson’s opinion that the Coalition is “destined to glorious failure” is based on the assumption that it will merely create guidance or “legislation” that may improve advertising, but will do nothing to prevent users continuing to use ad-blocking software. He may be right, but I rather think the coalition will go a lot further. It is made up of major global advertisers (including P&G, Unilever), trade bodies and media owners, but also companies with massive technological firepower (including Microsoft, Google, and Facebook).

They don’t intend just to set standards but to “develop and deploy technology to implement these standards.” This is fighting talk. Unlike LEAN, the voluntary principles from the IAB, which agencies routinely ignore, the Coalition promises to take direct action.

What action might it take? The players in the Coalition have the wherewithal to create technology which will block any advertising on the web that does not follow the set of standards it creates. Couldn’t they also render the ad-blocking companies inoperable by rewiring the web so their technologies no longer function? I have no idea how this would be done technically, I can only speculate that the amount of time, effort and resources going into the Coalition (and AMP, which must be connected to all this somehow) that there is more going on than first meets the eye. Also, who are you going to back in this fight (because that’s what it is): the tech giants in the Coalition or ABP?

I ought to point out that ISBA is not part of the Coalition, so what I have to say on the matter is speculative and based on an interpretation of what it has said in the public domain. We will find out in due course if it was Professor Ritson or myself who got it right.

In part two of this piece, to be published in early January, I will examine what publishers and ad tech companies are doing to help fight ad-blocking and the implications for advertisers and for users.

Mark Finney is director or media and advertising at ISBA