Advertising Agency Hoopla.
Aggressive tracking, privacy, personalised content and opaque advertorials, Web advertising has become annoying, disruptive and negative.
As click-through rates fall, ads are beginning to become obtrusive and annoying as they try to be heard.
Hence, were seeing the explosion of adblockers, which further depresses click-through rates and the vicious cycle worsens. Most of us understand that advertising is the economic driver of the Internet and gives us free websites and great content.
So, knowing we can’t (shouldn’t) kill advertising we need to find a middle ground – a place where ads survive but they’re not a pain in the ass.
Say “Hello” to acceptable ads
Started a couple of years ago, here is their outline approach:
- Acceptable Ads are not annoying.
- Acceptable Ads do not disrupt or distort the page content we’re trying to read.
- Acceptable Ads are transparent with us about being an ad.
- Acceptable Ads are effective without shouting at us.
- Acceptable Ads are appropriate to the site that we are on.
- We believe that advertisers, their ad agencies, online ad networks and publishers should come together and support these guidelines for Acceptable Ads. Together we can make the Internet a better place for everyone!
Mostly, this sounds good and they’re keen to engage both punters and companies via a manifesto:
“We, the undersigned, want to make the Internet a better place for everyone. We’ll start by getting rid of obnoxious ads…”
They’re specifically targeting ad technology that mostly gets in the way of enjoying the web: Obtrusive pop-ups, or obnoxious blinking ads, or 30-second pre-roll video ads.
Oddly, these “Acceptable Ads,” were first developed by Adblocking companies! We cannot block every ad as the Internet would become expensive so there is actually a market incentive that favors these acceptable ads, because these are the ads that are most welcomed, least blocked and most viewed.
The aim is to see the end of; being forced to watch stuff, tricked into clicking stuff, reading distorted content, being followed around or fooled into thinking it’s real content,
Hell, the lofty aim even suggest that Acceptable Ads are the ones we, the users, decide we accept!
If not, then a two-speed web awaits us, in which the poor are mercilessly milked via advertising-supported content.
