Dive Brief:
- Speaking at the IAB conference during ad week, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said the way to combat ad blocking is to create better ads.
- She pointed out that content and ads are closely connected, and if ads go away, then content might disappear as well.
- Mayer suggested that native advertising — key to Yahoo's current business strategy — will make ads less annoying for consumers.
Dive Insight:
Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, offered a defense of online ads during Advertising Week in New York City.
Mayer, a long-time Google executive before joining then-struggling Yahoo as CEO in 2012, said better ads would help alleviate the ad-blocking challenge that digital marketers face. She advised marketers to become more transparent and make it easier for people to opt out of targeted advertising.
“I really believe that commercials and ads make content better. The experience on the Web [without ads] becomes a lot less rich in my experience," Mayer said. "I personally think it is a mistake.”
Mayer made a point to draw the connection between online content and advertising, suggesting that ad blocking will threaten the business models of digital media companies.
“The reason we have such tremendous resources [on the Web] is that we actually have ads that work," Mayer said. "It is really important to keep that ecosystem vibrant. We need to make sure we have business models that work … I just think it makes the Internet better.”
Mayer sees native advertising as a solution that will allow publishers and marketers to serve better ads to consumers. Native ads are a key part of Yahoo's current strategy, along with mobile and video content.
