Why Adblocking is good news for marketers

For some time, there have been lots of mutterings about the Adblocking issue and the debate has just got a whole lot noisier with Apple introducing an ad-blocking feature into Safari for iOS9.

Whether you’re all for ad-blocking or fearful it sounds the death knell of the Internet as we know it, here’s my two penneth… It’s a damn fine thing for businesses and their marketing departments the world over.

Quite simply, it’s a good old-fashioned kick up the arse.

Over two-thirds of millennials are now using Adblocking software – missing $21bn worth of online ads. As a result, it’s pretty clear the user is in control and advertisers are going to have to think differently about how they connect with their audience.

And what good news that is.

Admit it. Online ads are an on-going joke; the annoying, drop out cousin to the suave TV ad.

For the ‘end customer’ they are annoying, irrelevant, flashing monstrosities that slow up a website.

For advertisers they are all too often an afterthought; a bodge job, a symptom of trying to squeeze a cool creative message into a very uncool, very uncreative box.

No wonder you are more likely to survive a plane crash than you are to click on a banner ad.

Here’s the truth.

Online marketers have become lazy – churning out campaigns that their potential audience actively want to go away. For too long, they’ve been egged on by websites offering cheap inventory – and why not, some of these sites are up to 85% funded by ad revenue.

While the publishers and advertisers have been in cahoots, they’ve lost site of the punter.

And now suddenly we are in uproar that people want to block ads. We are the black cab drivers of the digital age, desperately clinging onto a broken system simply because it’s always worked for us.

So Adblocking is a good thing.

Not for the Internet, it could well be a terrible thing for the Internet. But for businesses, and their marketing departments it’s a good thing.

It means marketers finally have to make a real attempt to be informative, engaging, compelling and entertaining online – not just shove a message in someone’s face until they can finally get their mouse to click the miniscule cross.

It means the advertising industry has to properly think about digital, and innovate the way we use online to reach audiences and connect with them in ways they (might) actually listen.

It means we all have to start thinking and being clever with how we use new digital technologies.

It means innovation.

Surely that’s good news for everyone?

Well done ad-blockers. Well done.

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