The future is clearly shaping the consumer to be more in charge of what he sees and hears, encouraging brands to be more relevant to their audience than ever.
With Apple’s new iOS9 endorsing ad blockers (users can download it for Safari browser), there is more pressure on the advertising industry to identify solutions for the growing movement of internet users seeking an ad-free environment.
With the rise of internet users looking to consume free content, publishers are struggling to find new streams of revenue to maintain the level of available free content, which users have become accustomed to accessing. Through technology, publishers are tackling the situation by investing heavily on integrating ads within their platforms in a seamlessly non-intrusive manner while exposing their users to only contextually relevant ads based their online behaviours.
Unfortunately, there is still a high level of ad-intrusiveness resulting in internet users seeking technology solutions that allow them to consume content uninterrupted. Ad blockers have emerged as the best solution for users to tackle the situation, but ultimately will affect their freedom to continue consuming free content.
A recent study from PageFair in partnership with Adobe stated alarming figures highlighting that 198 million people surf the web using ad-blocking software, which translates in publishers losing millions of dollars in ad revenue annually. This could result in publishers considering alternative sources of revenue, which may include membership fees that will end in online consumers losing access to quality free content.
The ad blocking technology provides multiple solutions for their users but its most important attribute lays in the message it sends out to advertisers everywhere. According to Adblock, the ultimate goal is to ‘support websites that rely on advertising but choose to do it in a non-intrusive way’.
By rewarding sites that use non-intrusive advertising, there is hope that it will encourage a movement across all publishers to follow suit and make the web a better place for everyone.
We are potentially heading towards an internet environment where free quality content is no longer available for users to consume. More socially-driven technology solutions are beginning to emerge to reward content producers and publishers in an attempt to move away from solely relying on advertising revenue.
One such solution that has been turning heads is Flattr, a micro-donation service that allows people to give a small amount of money each month to content they would like to give support to. It can be compared to a ‘Facebook like’ with the addition of money attached.
With Flattr, online users will automatically reward content producers and avoid publishers relying on advertising alone.
Another potential solution could involve telco companies charging users for packages of content in the same way they charge for broadband services. Imagine that in the same way you pay a fee to listen to unlimited music you can do the same to consume content.
This approach will allow you to consume your preferred content within an ad-free environment while publishers are paid for the content produced.
The message from users to publishers is clear, now the challenge is how quickly publishers can tackle the situation by partnering with technology providers and stopping the trend on ad blockers downloads.
— The writer is Digital Director, Mediavest.
