Ad Blocker Stockholm Syndrome

You Will Believe It's Fun

On my radar today, there's a piece in Ad Age (no, not linking) which talks about how the rise in ad blocking software shouldn't result in people trying to block the blockers... but to make ads better.

I'll give you all a moment to blink slowly at this spectacular embodiment of Stockholm Syndrome.

But getting back into the gist of the clickbait...

1) It's a big problem! Ad blocker usage has doubled since 2013!

Um, 2X of not a very meaningful amount is still not a very meaningful amount. Besides, if you really want to sound the alarm, talk about mobile, which is where the traffic growth is actually happening. Oh, and it might also be relevant to note how younger demographics are leaving TV in droves, which kind of means that the Web is winning, at least in comparison. Sky? Not falling.

2) People hate advertising!

Gosh, that's new. Imagine if online ads were actually intrusive, say, in 30-second unskippable audio and video chunks. Or printed on paper and placed in a mailbox that you had to clean, or on billboards that you can't help but look at, or... anyway. Online ads are certainly so uniquely onerous as to encourage scofflaw tech.

3) Let's focus on improving the advertising experience!

Shockingly, this is kind of what ad pros have been, well, trying to do all this time. We have to conform to a wide range of conditions, mostly based around brand standards for our clients, sizes and other restrictions... but I've never been in a creative meeting, in over 15 years in the field for an unspeakable number of clients, when anyone spoke to a desire to have a terrible advertising experience.

4) Because at the end of it all... advertising is a form of content!

By this logic, I am a form of NBA player, because I watch a fair amount of it.

Um, no. Advertising is adjacent to content. It may be, with targeting and relevance, something that is appreciated or valued by the user, but it is, well, trying to sell something, either directly or indirectly. That's not content.

5) We need to invest in creativity!

News that we haven't been doing that, actually.

I could go on, but you hopefully get the point. People who block ads are breaking a de facto social contract, and making everyone else pay more for their malfeasance. They do not need to celebrated or coddled. Advertising does not need to get better because of them; advertising needs to get better because it is advertising, and advertising always needs to get better, because there is no other way to beat a control, or improve how you are telling a brand's story.

Ad blocking is just another aspect of how tech exists that lets us do something that we really should not do. Blaming the tech, or the conditions that led to the tech, is bass ackwards. And that's all I've got to say about that.

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