Top 10 Reasons Online Advertising Must Change
The current model of online advertising is only 20 years old but it is already far beyond its sell-by date. It has become a ridiculous anachronism, born in an era of naive digital utopianism, and now absurdly outmoded and unsuited to its job.
In no particular order, here are 10 reasons why online advertising must change.
1. Fraud: Online advertising fraud is completely out of control. According to JPMorgan Chase it has grown by over 100% in the past year to over $16 billion. There are no serious impediments to its continued metastasizing. The fraudsters are miles ahead of the feckless cyber-security crowd who are filling their clients full of delusional happy talk. According to the World Federation of Advertisers, within 8 years ad fraud may become the second largest source of criminal income in the world, after drug trafficking.
2. Waste: The amount of money advertisers are wasting on online advertising is astounding. Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of the world’s largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, says that only 25% of his programmatic budget ever reaches the consumer. The rest is wasted on non-viewable ads, fraud, and the questionable “contributions” of ad tech middlemen. When you add to that the fact that less than 10% of the advertising that does reach consumers is even noticed, you have a waste factor that is beyond belief.
3. Public Disgust: Worldwide disgust over online advertising is reaching a breaking point. People are so fed-up with the annoying, irresponsible, and relentless onslaught of online ads that over 600 million web enabled devices are currently armed with ad blockers. Every credible study ever done has shown that online advertising is the most disliked and distrusted form of advertising. The online ad lobby sold us on the idea that it would be more popular with consumers because tracking would make it more “relevant.” What a joke that argument has turned out to be. In one study consumers were asked about 13 different types of advertising. The 8 most disliked were all forms of online advertising. Unless the current model of online advertising changes, ad blocking — the mortal enemy of marketers — will continue its unabated proliferation.
4. Effectiveness: Despite the growth of online advertising, substantial questions are being raised about its effectiveness. These questions are becoming widespread. Click rates are reported to be about 5 per 10,000 ads served. P&G announced that they had cut about $140 million in online ads from their 2nd quarter spending this year during which time their sales grew by 2%. According to The Wall Street Journal the online cuts …“had little impact on its business, proving that those digital ads were largely ineffective.”
5. Brand Safety: Anyone not comatose knows that in the bizarre world of ad tech and programmatic buying advertising can show up anywhere. Regardless of the empty promises of agencies and publishers, advertisers cannot control where their advertising appears. A comical example happened last week. An ad for the Association of National Advertisers, the body that exists to protect and defend the interests of advertisers, showed up on the big, bad, Breitbart website. The ANA, who strongly defend ad tech, looked like complete clowns when they had to apologize for “an unintentional result of a programmatic buy…” …
… read on at adcontrarian.blogspot.co.uk
Originally posted by Bob Hoffman as the Ad Contrarian
24th October 2017
Bob Hoffman will be discussing the issues relating to online advertising with David Wheldon, President of the WFA, at this year’s asi International Conferences in Nice, on 8th-10th November.