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Three to block mobile ads, media industry unimpressed

Three to block mobile ads, media industry unimpressed

In a move to tackle “excessive and irrelevant” mobile ads and free up customer data, mobile operator Three is to introduce ad-blocking technology across its network.

The group, which has struck a deal with Shine Technologies, said that its objective is not to eliminate mobile advertising – “which is often interesting and beneficial to our customers” – but to give customers more control, choice and greater transparency over what they receive.

“Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience,” Three UK’s chief marketing officer, Tom Malleschitz said.

“We don’t believe customers should have to pay for data usage driven by mobile ads. The industry has to work together to give customers mobile ads they want and benefit from.”

Three, which carries 42% of the UK’s mobile data traffic, according to Enders Analysis, has outlined three principal goals, with full details to be announced in the coming months.

1. That customers should not pay data charges to receive adverts. These should be costs borne by the advertiser.

2. That customers’ privacy and security must be fully protected. Some advertisers use mobile ads to extract and exploit data about customers without their knowledge or consent.

3. That customers should be entitled to receive advertising that is relevant and interesting to them, and not to have their data experience in mobile degraded by excessive, intrusive, unwanted or irrelevant adverts.

ISBA’s director of public affairs, Ian Twinn, said advertisers will undoubtedly be following developments carefully.

“Ad blocking systems that automatically exclude ads will have a knock on effect on free media content, as advertisers will walk away from digital spending if consumers are volunteered as blockers.

“This trend is not confined to Three and ISBA will remain committed to finding a way through that respects consumers feelings as well as maintaining an ad funded content system, which we know consumers also want.”

Earlier this week, a report from adtech firm Quantcast concluded that advertisers need to deliver more creative and relevant mobile advertising “or risk losing consumer engagement entirely.”

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The report, carried out by Censuswide with Quantcast data, explores the mobile habits of more than 3,000 consumers in the UK, France and Germany.

It reveals that 37% of consumers “expect” mobile adverts to be more relevant than on other devices (while 35% disagreed, and 28% gave no comment), while 40% say they wish mobile ads were more creative (with 32% disagreeing, 28% giving no comment).

For younger people, aged between 16-34, the report states that expectations are higher – with 47% and 51% demanding more relevancy and creativity, respectively.

59% of consumers said that they would be more accepting of mobile advertising if it was relevant to them.

However, one of the main gripes the report uncovered was the interruption of personal time.

Currently 51% of consumers find mobile adverts more intrusive than adverts received on their desktop or tablet, while almost half admit that advertising received on their mobile phones that is not relevant to them negatively impacts their overall perception of a brand.

According to an Adobe-PageFair study published in August 2015, ad-blocking was estimated to cost publishers nearly £15 billion a year and that there are already 198 million active ad-block users around the world.

The study believes that ad-blocking increased by 41 per cent in 12 months and that in the year to June 2015 US ad-blocking grew by 48 per cent to a total of 45 million users.

More current figures published from GlobalWebIndex found that in the last quarter of 2015, following publicity that ad-blocking had spread to Apple mobiles, the use of ad-blocking had risen 10 per cent to 38 per cent on desktop PCs.

At the same time 37 per cent of mobile users had used ad-blockers in the past month with only 21 per cent of those surveyed saying they had no interest in doing so.

The demographics of mobile ad-blocking show, unsurprisingly, but ominously for the media, that the 16-34-year old age group are the main users of ad-blocking apps.

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