People are deeply unhappy with the vast majority of digital advertising and a potential crisis is looming: if huge numbers of people adopt ad blocking functionality, the adtech industry only has itself to blame, believes Richard Huntington, Saatchi & Saatchi's Chief Strategy Officer. As four of the one most important factors, advertising is most effective when there is "consumer acceptance of advertising in the medium", something that is largely ignored by the ad tech industry. Huntington argues that this consent, that people are happy for the medium and content they are using to be interrupted through advertising activity, is lacking when it comes to online and mobile media. The digital advertising industry must therefore start again and create a consensus between publishers, advertisers and consumers about how advertising is allowed to work online in terms of how it interrupts, how it engages and what data it uses. If not, there is a real danger that valuable publishers will be pushed out, warns Huntington.
People are deeply unhappy with the vast majority of digital advertising and a potential crisis is looming: if huge numbers of people adopt ad blocking functionality, the adtech industry only has itself to blame, believes Richard Huntington, Saatchi & Saatchi's Chief Strategy Officer. As one of the four most important factors, advertising is most effective when there is "consumer acceptance of advertising in the medium", something that is largely ignored by the ad tech industry. Huntington argues that this consent, that people are happy for the medium and content they are using to be interrupted through advertising activity, is lacking when it comes to online and mobile media. The digital advertising industry must therefore start again and create a consensus between publishers, advertisers and consumers about how advertising is allowed to work online in terms of how it interrupts, how it engages and what data it uses. If not, there is a real danger that valuable publishers will be pushed out, warns Huntington.