Online Advertising The New Digital Paradox

Michael Hedges July 10, 2014 Follow on Twitter

Online advertising is certainly soaring. If the ad people are masters at getting their messages in front of people creatively, the media-tech companies are reaping rich reward by getting ads to pop-up everywhere in digital life. Big data – collecting, crunching and selling it on - is propelling it all. It’s more than a little creepy.

German broadcaster ProSiebenSat1.Media, joined by RTL marketing subsidiaries IP Deutschland and IP Interactive, have reportedly filed a lawsuit in Munich district court against Eyeo, claiming its AdBlock Plus browser add-on is just unfair, reported horizont.de (July 3). Eyeo GmbH is a Cologne-based cooperative along the lines of Wikipedia with a mission to “put users in control over the kind of content they see online.” AdBlock Plus, they say, is the biggest add-on extension “ever.”

“We think the business model is unlawful and this can now be clarified in court,” said ProSiebenSat1 marketing subsidiary Seven One Media managing director Thomas Port. An IP Interactive spokesperson confirmed their filing but would not comment further. A spokesperson for big German publisher Axel Springer confirmed its separate lawsuit against Eyeo but would not comment further. An Eyeo spokesperson said they had not received notice from the court.

Ad sellers understandably don’t like Ad Block Plus or any other browser add-on that sends online ads to the place where unwanted online ads go. But Eyeo has gone a bit of a step further, similar to email spam filters, creating white-lists of “acceptable ads,” accessible for a fee. Google, the world’s largest digital ad platform, contributes to Eyeo, reported TechCrunch (July 6, 2013), and some of its ads seem to pass right through the system.

In April Seven One Media ran an informational campaign in Germany urging laptop and smartphone users to block Ad Block Plus “to make clear to users that blocking ads is harming merchants,” said Herr Port. Digital ads will take a quarter of all global ad spending this year, reported Emarketer’s latest forecast (July 9). And a quarter of that will be ads directed at mobile devices.

An Edelman Berland survey for software maker Adobe in 2013 found 62% of Germans “annoyed” by online advertising and 31% “disturbed.” Targeted advertising, that fun thing made possible by big data, gives people “a creepy feeling.” It’s little surprise those fighting Ad Block Plus and similar add-ons prefer to keep a lower profile.

Big data being the promised-land for media-tech companies – and giving many folk that “creepy feeling” - Eyeo began offering a new add-on extension to Ad Block Plus that prevents certain well-known social media portals from “peering into your browsing habits.” Facebook, for example, made public last month its plan to combine targeted advertising with web-browsing history. Through another wonder of entrepreneurial technology, visiting any web page with a Facebook button creates a an online profile, explained pc-magazin.de (July 7). Those “like” buttons are watching you.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, ad people worry about online advertising. ComScore estimated last year that half of all online ads are simply not seen. Programmatic buying (read:automated) is all the rage and delivers ads at the best possible cost per thousand. A huge portion of those thousands don’t get – actively or passively – the message.

“It is important to develop (ad) formats that are useful and not avoided at all costs,” wrote Ebuzzing & Teads CEO Pierre Chappaz in Huffington Post (July 8). “Nobody finds the advertising interesting, only something they must endure. This negative attitude can very quickly spread to the brand advertised.”

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