Disarming the Ad Bomb: Part 2

On November 11 we published the first installment of a fourpart response to Drexleramp8217s piece written by David Smith of Mediasmith It proved equally combustible as evidenced by the response to industry veteran Blaise Damp8217Sylvaamp8217s November 17 column about Smithamp8217s column To date all three of these columns have been among the mostread and mostdiscussed in the history of MediaVillageYou can read the column that started it all here Smithamp8217s first response can be found here Damp8217Sylvaamp8217s response to Smith is hereAnd now MediaVillage is pleased to present the second installment of Smithamp8217s fourpart response to Drexleramp8217s original columnTwo weeks ago my first response to Mike Drexleramp8217s column addressed the issues of transparency client relationships and clients wanting to move operations inhouse This time I am responding to his facts about technology and ad blocking as they relate to programmatic buyingDrexler has pointed at technology as the game changer that nobody has yet figured out how to best deal with amp8220If you think programmatic buying is unsettling with all that goes along with itamp8221 he says amp8220think about amp8230 ad blockingamp8221My Response With all due respect to Mr Drexler it is an exaggeration maybe for effect that amp8220nobodyamp8221 has figured out how to deal with these changes At Mediasmith we tackled this initially through crowdsourcing solutions Everyone on our team became a resident expert in an emerging technology and sharing their findings with the rest of our group The knowledge then permeated the entire agency and became a part of our culture that persists today Yes it is complex There are too many new media technologies and too many vendors to deal with practically But consolidation is in the air While many of these technologies provide point solutions to client needs or agencypublisherclient pain points there is no question that there is significant overlap and inefficiency in having to deal with so many technologies to launch a planbuy and track successoptimize Mediasmith like many newer agencies has made a point of studying these technologies to ensure that the correct ones are deployed for campaigns If your agency is not doing this get a new agency There is no question that the metamorphosis from traditional ad buying to programmatic ad buying has opened the door to a host of issues surrounding the amp8220ad tech stackamp8221One of the challenges created by these technologies is ad blocking which will be dealt with in our following response The other challenges are in the area we label as TrustQuality This includes viewability fraud and malware There are a host of companies with solutions in this arena selling their services to agencies and clients But the reality is that these issues rightfully belong on the publisher and exchange side Some are stepping up Just this month Google introduced 100 viewable ads All campaigns bought on a CPM basis can be viewed through the Google Display Network GDN AppNexus announced that it would provide historical placementlevel viewability in bid requests and has started filtering for fraud and invalid activity such as resale In March the ad industry working as a collective launched the Trustworthy Accountability Group TAG which recruited multiple CMOs from bigname companies to combat industrywide ad fraud These issues need to be resolved ASAP so we can trust what we are buying and move onamp160 The best solution would be one in which the publishers and exchanges promised to sell only amp8220cleanamp8221 inventory without the problems mentioned aboveDrexler believes ad blocking really is a problem amp8220Digital ad spending continues to outpace all traditional media formsamp8221 he states in his column amp8220And all traditional media forms are still trying to figure out what to do about digital platforms amp8230 Ad blocking technology can literally take down the industry unless proper solutions can be found Honestly itamp8217s not a legal issue itamp8217s a consumer issue and a business issue Content and creativity including native advertising product placement sponsorship etc will obviously play an important role but ad blocking will change the monetization and metrics of digital mediaamp8221My Response Ad blocking is a very dynamic issue and every week something new comes out about what may or may not happen IMHO everyone should relax about this Ad blocking isnamp8217t a new thing Desktop browsers have been using ad blocking software at a rate of about 15 for years as have Android devices From Q2 of 2013 to Q2 of 2014 the numbers of ad blocker users on Chrome doubled from 44 million to 86 million And ADI reports Google has captured the marketing share of ad blocking from Internet Explorer Companies have been vying for that title for a while Ad blocking is only a new thing for Apple iOS users The real rub will come when consumers begin to realize that these new ad blockers donamp8217t block ads they block all third party content And that ad blockers still allow advertisements through theyamp8217re now just charging the advertiser for their content to be seen The consumer appears to be the only one getting the short end of the stick on both accounts What will happen when they realize this I think youamp8217ll see a normalization of ad blocker usage back to the percentages theyamp8217ve always been But either way the recent attention is warranted Invasive and inappropriate ads have gone too far At a Wall St Journal conference last month Google ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy spoke about this and other quality issues He believes that it is essential to our survival that we create a more sustainable ad standard that we voluntarily define and things in that standard should not get blocked He said this needs to happen right away and is looking to declare these standards in months We support this approachWhat lies ahead of our industry is an exciting challenge and publishers advertisers and clients are once again talking about whatamp8217s best for the consumer what aids a useramp8217s experience not just what ad to place in the middle of it I believe our industry should and does for the most part feel the same way We need to work on methods to win back customer loyalty keep a democratic World Wide Web and create better advertising technologies Acting as a proposed bearing for future practices the IAB has admitted they messed up and launched the LEAN Ads Program Light Encrypted Adchoice supported Noninvasive ads These principles are designed to guide the next phases of advertising technical standards for the global digital advertising supply chain I hope thatamp8217s enough and that these practices will be refined until the best practices materialize and become gospelNext time I will talk about ad quality talent and the rise of startupsThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggers

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