In the old age (yes, old age) advertising used to take control of the minds of everyone in the marketing and sales team of every brand that we have known. It was as if we don’t have a choice, both brands and consumers. The former needs to come up with every way possible to get leads, and convert them to sales regardless if the advertising piece does not make any sense at all. And the consumers are left to go through web pages and print magazines with the oddest combination of advertising pieces, an ad spot for barbershop who just recently opened beside a black Friday sale ad spot and below these two colorful ads, you see a hypnotherapist giving a free consultation. And if it’s election season, as soon as you turn to the next page, you see a page full of the most annoying candidate who promises you the moon when he gets elected. (How he will do that without a space ship is a different topic)
This trend undermines the central business model for much of the internet, and all we can do is to adapt to it
Technologist and digital innovators understood the need to get rid of this noise, this chaos, they have decided that the consumer journey should be at the top priority, it does not make sense to spend money on annoying your consumers with ads. And so we begin to see hope in a better “advertising” future – welcome, Ad Blocking!
I believe advertising will still matter after all these, but what Ad Blocking is doing is that it is bringing back the best consumer experience there is, one that people can relate to in real life. It transforms brands into storytellers and consumers go after these stories. Not the other way around where advertisements have to chase consumers.
Last quarter of 2015, Apple rolled out its ad blocking tool which sent the publishing world scrambling, and Android followed suit.
This trend undermines the central business model for much of the internet, and all we can do is to adapt to it and, as a result, we become better communicators, we don’t need to force one liner advertising for consumers to buy from us, we don’t need the cliche approach of selling things, we just need to tell a story – why our brand matters, why consumers should choose us, and what can add value to the consumers.
