{"id":650,"date":"2015-09-22T13:41:52","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T12:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2015-09-22T13:41:52","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T12:41:52","slug":"adblocking-and-playing-the-piano-in-a-brothel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/adblocking-and-playing-the-piano-in-a-brothel\/","title":{"rendered":"Adblocking and Playing the Piano in a Brothel"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a very old joke about the adman who when interviewed said \u2018Don\u2019t tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I am a piano player in a brothel\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Indeed, the legendary French adman, Jacques Seguela (the \u2018S\u2019 in RSCG, now part of Havas) used the joke as a title for his 1979 book.<\/span><\/p>\n

To\u00a0encourage the feeling that we were all at work in a profession that whilst not exactly noble was at least vaguely socially acceptable, my generation in full-service agencies used to quote a statistic that showed that more people liked TV commercials than the programmes surrounding them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From memory this was from a study conducted by someone very worthy (the Advertising Association perhaps?), and the figures were around 51% to 49% but never mind \u2013 the end result of our work was something at least some people enjoyed.<\/span><\/p>\n

We seem to have moved from there to today \u2013 when adblockers are suddenly big news. Instead of actually enjoying the ads, large parts of the population are now actively prepared to pay, or at least to make a positive effort to avoid them. A search for adblockers yields over 2 million results.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Apple rolled out the latest version of its operating system last week it contained the opportunity for iPhone and iPad users to download an adblocking app. The app immediately shot to the top of the app ratings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trade commentators immediately went into blame mode. Whose fault is it that people are blocking ads? Not mine, said everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the comments were truly epic (and not in a good way). Carat Global\u2019s Chief Digital Officer, James Harris <\/span>told Media Post<\/span><\/a> \u201cProgrammatic sits at 1.0, which is about hitting people many times, because they’re in an audience pool. Brands need to look for the signal from consumers telling them it’s the appropriate time to serve an ad.”<\/span><\/p>\n

What? Does he genuinely believe consumers are going to send the industry a signal? How? By text?<\/span><\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t he, and others like him at least in part responsible for the flawed strategy that puts \u2018hitting people many times\u2019 ahead of engaging with and influencing people to do or think something?<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there are the comments from several senior media agency figures that say adblockers will drive the growth of native advertising. <\/span><\/p>\n

What, again? Don\u2019t these people get it? Most online commercial messages aren\u2019t very good. Consumers don\u2019t like them. Simply hiding the message inside some no-doubt not-very-good content might fool the adblockers, at least for now but it\u2019s hardly a strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s irritate consumers even more, this approach seems to suggest, by stopping them blocking messages \u2013 because no doubt that\u2019s the way to persuade them.<\/span><\/p>\n

My favourite was the media agency guy (maybe we should be kind and grant him anonymity) who told the trade press (and I paraphrase) the solution is simple \u2013 we need to make better ads.<\/span><\/p>\n

Does he actually think creatives, or indeed anyone writing an ad sits down to write something, and the first thought is \u2018let\u2019s do a really bad ad\u2019? <\/span><\/p>\n

And how exactly does he think we will achieve the lofty aim of universally better ads? No doubt by setting up a one-man ad approval board, with him as judge and jury.<\/span><\/p>\n

And anyway, my great ad is probably your most-annoying-ad-ever. People are different, you see.<\/span><\/p>\n

Behind all of this is a serious point. Publishers\u2019 online models are based by and large on ads. Block them, and you risk eviscerating the premium publisher business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some publishers are appealing straight to their loyal readers, pointing out that without ads they\u2019ll have to charge them for content. Others resort to the law courts (unsuccessfully, so far at least).<\/span><\/p>\n

One other approach could be for publishers to talk more to creative agencies. After all, if creatives understood more about how, and why people consume online media forms they may well be better placed to create for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where does that leave the media agencies? The smart strategists and planners certainly can add value to a creatively-driven process. As to the rest? Playing around with commoditised, low cost, low value messaging that\u2019s where.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still \u2013 there\u2019s always the piano playing option out there.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a very old joke about the adman who when interviewed said \u2018Don\u2019t tell my mother I work in advertising, she thinks I am a piano player in a brothel\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}