Engagement In A Time Of Abundance

Michael Hedges May 9, 2016 Follow on Twitter

New media technologies have performed miracles before our eyes. Pictures, stories, words and sounds are delivered to billions with ease unimaginable just a few moments ago. Information, content or spam, all of it streams ever faster, bigger, brighter and louder. None of this is a miracle; no need to call the Vatican. It’s just physics.

For publishers and broadcasters, viewed broadly, new media expands reach exponentially with each additional channel and platform. Some of these streams have become revenue bearing. Even if consumer spending has not entirely rebounded since the dark days of the last decade, big smartphone/tablet data plans with (and without) video and audio subscriptions are considered essential for daily life. Walking along any street in the world means tripping over a pack of Millennials engaged in “whatever” with their iPhones.

Some of that engagement is with Snapchat, Instagram or Periscope and sometimes music services. Some of it is shopping. China’s online retail giant Alibaba reported fourth quarter revenue growth of 39%, noted Reuters (May 5), to US$3.76 billion.

And where there’s shopping, there’s advertising. Those casting their wares into the ether, broadly or narrowly, hope for micro-payments from media buyers, the media revenue stream of convenience if not choice. The advertising people count, literally, on the indulgence.

“Move into digital as fast as you can,” beheld gigantic advertising (and everything related) holding company WPP CEO Martin Sorrell at a gathering of the like-minded in April. First quarter revenues through all the various WPP subsidiaries rose 11% to US$4.48 billion, noted MarketWatch (April 28). The ever-quotable Mr.Sorrell also claimed the prestige of getting the fattest executive compensation package of any FTSE 100 company, an eye-watering US$102 million. Facebook received US$1 billion from WPP for ad space in 2015, reported AdAge (May 2), up about one-third year on year. Google is getting much more, US$5 billion.

But the sage of spot and space sellers is worried about new, particularly mobile media. “We haven’t contextualised mobile as much as we should,” he said to the Advertising Week Europe conference, quoted by Mobile Marketing (April 19). “The small screen has not become a screen that agencies have become comfortable with. We don’t do the targeting as well as we should, and the potential is certainly there, and we don’t do the creative as well as we should.”

Context is but one new media challenge for the advertising people. It seems a considerable portion of smartphone and tablet users fail to grasp the relative merit of ads bringing them access to the web pages they enjoy. In fact, they hate those pop-ups, front-rolls and scroll-outs that eat data and delay gratification. iPhone and iPad maker Apple responded to this consumer furry by allowing ad blockers in new operation systems. Opera released this past week tested and ready ad blocker versions for their Opera Mini and desktop operating systems. TechTimes, reporting this (May 4), said: “Ads, Begone!” Microsoft quickly followed with an ad-blocker extension in Windows browser Edge.

Publishers, largely, have not taken this abrupt displacement of ad revenue, or fear thereof, sitting down. Appeals to consumer’s sense of fair-play have gone nowhere. Ad-blocker blockers appeared. Several publishers, from Le Monde to Forbes, have tried to politely incentivize removal of ad-blocking apps. Others, notably Axel Springer’s tabloid Bild, flashed a screen telling web visitors to unload the ad-blocker or pay a fee.

That idea has run afoul of the European Commission, which is of the opinion that software to detect whether or not a web user has enabled an ad blocker could violate a provision in the e-Privacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC Article 5(3)) known as the “cookie law.” EU Directives being what they are, there are other opinions. Most ad-blocker blockers don’t really block the ad-blockers but, rather, detect whether or not ads have been blocked. Shades of Schrödinger’s cat, yes? Eager to tackle the paradox of being dead and alive at the same time, the e-Privacy Directive is currently being revised

The entrepreneurial spirit being deeply embedded in the digital genome, notorious ad-blocking software and app provider AdBlock Plus is developing a browser extension with content-funding site Flattr that “automatically” takes donations from website visitors and sends it to publishers, less the usual 10% fee. Flattr is the brain-child of Peter Sunde, founder of also notorious sharing portal Pirate Bay. AdBlock Plus offended nearly everybody with its for-fee “white-list” of websites privileged with unblocked ads.

Boundless is the creativity of the technology-inspired. Serial developer Brendan Eich – creator of Javascript, founder of Firefox – launched the Brave browser to unlock the power of advertising by wiping a website’s ads and inserting new ones. It also wipes tracking cookies. Refusing to sign-up for the offered revenue-sharing plan, National Association of Newspapers (US) members sent a cease and desist letter.

Lawmakers are reluctant to upset the digital apple-cart, Apple’s tax situation notwithstanding. Killing the much reviled mobile roaming fees was easy for the European Commission compared to endless re-writes of privacy and copyright rules. National authorities, with obvious exceptions, are slowly accepting lighter regulation of all things digital to keep the digital money flowing.

Ad blocking resonated with some telecoms. UK mobile provider Three began ad blocking earlier this year. “Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience,” said a company spokesperson, quoted by the Guardian (February 19). O2 Czech Republic followed. Vodafone Germany hinted the possibility of blocking mobile ads in March then backed away.

What a smartphone user does with their personal gizmo is one thing, telecoms looking to gate-keep the web is something else... maybe. The EC’s roaming charge reforms coming into effect at the end of April were part of a slightly broader set of telecom regulations, within which net neutrality is enshrined. “We will not have a two-speed internet,” said European Parliament telecoms market rapporteur Pilar del Castillo in a press release (April 28).

The EU’s new net neutrality rules are conspicuously porous. Loopholes allow telecoms to slow the data flow when impending congestion is only suspected. Legacy European telecoms are, largely, State-owned, quite profitable and not nearly a troublesome as publishers and broadcasters with their nosey journalists.

"Consumer receptivity to advertising is our most precious asset. It's like our oxygen," fumed market researcher Millward Brown EVP Sue Elms at a conference last year, quoted by mediatel.co.uk (October 23, 2015). "It's like we're pumping out our own version of CO2 into the atmosphere and we're destroying the environment. People are becoming less receptive to advertising and it's our fault and that's the inconvenient truth."

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