Agencies and brands shrug off ad blocking: ‘This is not on my radar’
While publishers scramble to figure out what ad blocking is going to do their businesses, those creating and buying the ads — brands and agencies — couldn’t care less.
RAPP chief creative officer Frank Iqbal said that while privacy is something that many in the agency are always discussing, he has never heard clients or brands bring up ad blockers specifically. That’s mostly because brands aren’t feeling the pinch. At least, not yet. With Apple’s announcement that the new iOS operating system will support ad blockers, Iqbal said he expects brands to sit up and pay attention.
One brand exec who did not want to be named said she haven’t been thinking about the ad blocker issue much at all. But she predicts that other options, like revenue share and affiliate options on ads, may become more important in the future, and ad blocking will speed up that process.
This exec said that most brands still just care about hitting numbers, so if impression goals are hit and there’s a decent-enough CPM, “they probably won’t notice.”
But, if those numbers start to nosedive, they might start asking some questions. “The big question is will publishers have to report on ad metrics and data, or answer to us about how they plan to approach it?” the exec said.
A brand CMO who also requested anonymity said that those are the questions they “should” be asking — but haven’t been. “This is not on my radar,” this exec said.
The battleground is obviously more fraught for publishers, many of whom fear an erosion of advertising revenue streams as these blockers become more popular. Some, like the Washington Post, have gone as far as to block content for users using blocking tools. The UK’s top broadcaster ITV also turns away those using ad blockers. Others will tweak URLs or code ads directly into pages so ad blockers won’t be able to block them.
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