Dive Brief:
- The developers of Adblock Plus used the South by Southwest (SXSW) forum to announce a new app, which is expected to come out next summer, that will "reward" good ad content.
- The idea behind the app is to encourage marketers to make money off of their content, including advertising content.
- Ben Williams, spokesman for Eyeo, the creator of Adblock Plus, defined "good" ad content after a SXSW panel as ad content that isn’t disruptive, fits within certain tech guidelines and provides people with useful information.
Dive Insight:
"In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to just advertise to monetize your content. There would be a suite of possibilities to monetize good content, and advertising would just be one of those," Williams said in an interview with Campaign following the event.
The conversation around ad blocking has been tense in recent months, with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) president even saying ad blocking is at war with freedom of expression. The comment from IAB Chief Randall Rothenberg came at the IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting, from which Adblock Plus alleges it was uninvited.
Not surprisingly, ad blocking has been a major topic among consumers and the digital advertising media, with publishers like YouTube looking for different ways to approach the issue. In related ad blocking news affecting Adblock Plus users, for YouTube visitors running ad block tech, those viewers are encountering an error message while ads run on videos – although those visitors are then shown the video once the ad is over.
And this week news came out that the IAB is working with publishers in Sweden to have around 90% of all Swedish publications simultaneously block visitors using ad blocking software during the month of August.
As the debate around what to do about ad blocking escalates, it's clear the advertising community as a whole needs to address the issue head on.
