Where The Ads Will Be

Box And One

Much to do this week in AdWorld around the rise of online ad blockers. Bob Garfield at Media Post points out, correctly, that the current hue and cry is dumb, that the industry hasn't fixed the problem for the decade or more that it was on the horizon, and advertising execs need to finally cotton to the fact that, well, No One Likes Them, or their ads. They just tolerated them while they had to, and now, they don't have to.

Which pivots to Roi Carthy for AdAge, who turns a column into an advertisement (ironic!) for his company's ad blocking software. Consumers have a right to this stuff, you see, the same way that they had a right to download music for free, walk into stadiums without paying for a ticket, and just go to the supermarket and eat your way through the produce section. Wait, no one has the right to do that, even if no one's watching and you won't be caught? Then why does the software exist?

Don't have enough dumb in your life? Then step on down to hear the next approach, where consumers wouldn't block ads if the ads were just better. Also, if ads never, ever had malware. Because blaming all advertisers for a few bad actors is totally fair. People blocking ads are heroes!

Completing the collection of Oh, What A Piece Of Work Is Man? Ben Barokas at Sourcepoint, who equates his company's software as so meaningful, he's Superman (in a cape, no less) to online publishers. Why? Because his software blocks the ad blockers, allowing for the publishers to put the ads that the scofflaws didn't want to see... back in front of them. (Feel free to add a Nelson Muntzian Ha Ha! here.)

Heck of a way to run a railroad, folks.

Anyway, the plain and simple of online ads is this. The nits have won the day, up to now, because they've managed to only pay for clicks. The criminals have won the day, up to now, because Web publishers went to the lowest common denominator with Flash for a solid decade longer then they should have. The idiots who contributed to a world in which digital content couldn't be monetized have won the day, up to now, because it was easier to cry Hell In A Handbasket and Privacy Violation, rather than commit to software that might have monetized traffic enough to carry the day.

But, well, nits, criminals and idiots have never, in the course of human history, kept winning the day in perpetuity in areas of Real Business. And online ads are a real business, if only because other formats have, believe it or not, even worse problems.

Television is suffering viewership losses that are not going to reverse themselves, as younger generations have increasingly chosen their own screens. Print ads wish they had the problems that online did, because it would mean people were still trying to fix the issue, rather than just write it off as a lost cause. Outdoor is in a better boat than print, and has the wild card hope that the Internet of Things might one day save the business, but they'll take the hit if everyone keeps staring into their screens, particularly on mass transit. Telemarketing, radio, direct mail, the Yellow Pages -- all occupying different points on the continuum of obsolescence, all tremendously impacted by the continuing earthquake of worldwide connectivity and communication.

Online ads have, no question, Serious Issues... but these are UI and UX issues, rather than fundamental and critical failings. Will there be more fits and starts? Of course. But there are Serious People (hello, Alphabet!) at work on these issues, and way too much Serious Money at stake to leave things to the nits, criminals and idiots.

The eyes are on screens. The ads will be where the eyes are. The details of how will be worked out.

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