Dive Brief:
- Shine Technology, an ad-blocking tech company, mocked the digital ad world with a full page ad in the Financial Times featuring the iconic image of boxer Muhammad Ali standing over a defeated Sonny Liston.
- The ad (which you can view at the bottom of this post) likened the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to Liston with ad text reading, “The @iab knew we could block. Now they know we can punch, too.”
- Last month, a senior VP at the IAB admitted, “We messed up," referring to intrusive, revenue-centric ads that helped spawn and promote the ad-blocking tech sector.
Dive Insight:
Shine Technologies took a big swing at the digital advertising world with its full page ad in the Financial Times. The IAB, for its part, began a series of town hall meetings this week on its new L.E.A.N. Ads principles designed to promote more viewer-friendly online ads with acronym standing for Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported and Non-invasive ads.
At a website linked to in the Shine ad, a headline read, “The Ad Blocking Debate Is Over." It went on to add, “The advertising and publishing industries will continue to attack ad blocking as if it is the problem, but it will change nothing. iOS now supports ad blocking apps. Ad blocking tech will continue to be deployed at the network level by Wireless Carriers. Digital advertising as we’ve come to know and loathe will go by the wayside, with the end of the deplorable tactics that have defined digital advertising for a generation. Make no mistake about it, we know that ad tech hasn’t thrown-in the towel. They’ll continue sending lobbyists and anti-ad-blockers into the ring. But we’ll be there waiting, gloves laced-up, ready to prove yet again if we need to.”
According to Venture Beat, the way Shine works is at the carrier level, so some of the more disruptive ads are never even seen by the carrier's mobile users. Venture Beat goes on to explain that the technology Shine uses is different from consumer ad blockers like Adblock Plus, which users can install to block browser ads.
The @iab Knew We Could Block. Now They Know We Can Punch, Too. (Image: Our print ad in today's Financial Times.) pic.twitter.com/sz3lQQReCL
— Shine* (@getshine) November 5, 2015
