Instead of Blocking the Blockers, Let’s Focus on Making Advertising Better

The adoption of ad blockers is climbing at an alarming rate, with usage doubling since 2013. The reason cited for this steep incline is that people hate advertising. Wrong. Sure, people hate irrelevant, intrusive and offensive advertising, but all you have to do is ask someone to tell you about their favorite ads and you’ll hear a very different story.

It’s true that we are moving into a period in which many more direct-to-consumer content offerings will become available, but it’s also unrealistic to think that 100% of consumers are going to pay for ad-free content services. Ultimately, content will need to be paid for by someone and even the direct-to-consumer offerings will likely contain some level of advertising, whether it be dynamically inserted or sponsorship integrations. So let’s stop entertaining the notion that advertising is going to go away and focus instead on improving the advertising experience — both its relevancy and targeting — so that, together with the content experience, we can truly delight and not alienate audiences.

A medium with a message

There was a time (and it still may be the case) that people were as excited about the commercials as they were about the Super Bowl itself. The fact is that strong, relevant, entertaining commercials have always done well. Great creative gets viewed, discussed, shared, talked about and remembered for years to come. In a digital world, the potential for creative to make a significant impact is even more possible. Unfortunately, that’s not what most people are seeing now…  (Continue Reading on AdAge)