AdBlock vs. online advertising

Internet advertising is not acceptable for many users. They can’t imagine using the Internet without AdBlock (it’s Firefox plugin which blokcs many of online ads). According to Interaktywnie.com number of Adblock users in Poland is nearly 800,000. I asked Bartosz Wieczorek, President of Ad-Vice whether this phenomenon is the problem for online advertisement brokers.

- Interaktywnie.com says that about 780,000 users per day browsing websites with Adblock. Number of users is still growing. Is this a problem for your company?

- It’s truth that number of users who use AdBlock is growing but it is still a very small percentage of users only slightly exceeding the limit of statistical error. There will be no big growth in near future. At the same time we developing technology of displaying advertisements. We implement the latest solutions in this matter so AdBlock is not any threat. In most cases, Adblock blocks standard banners and we are slowly moving away from putting standard display ads. We are more interested in newer and more effective advertising solutions. We take care that not annoy users with our advertisements.

- What is the share of display campaigns in all campaigns that Ad-Vice does?

- For our customers, and most of them are agencies, we realize the branding and sales campaigns and we’re using all available media formats, focusing on non-invasive forms. Display campaigns it’s approximately 60-70% of all carried out by our network.

-What do you think about the future of display advertisement due to growing numer of users who hates this formats? I hear every year that display ads are dying.

- The future of display advertising is bright. In our opinion, we just starting to see that ot was mistake to evaluate this format because of CTR.

- All the studies show that the main value of display ad is a visual contact with the transmission. Thanks to that, message reaches the awareness of recipient in the unprocessed way. In this the power of advertising lies, including display advertisement. But we have to change the way of thinking to use this potential. We need to focus on the visibility of advertising, the average contact time with ad and the presence of advertising in the field of view of user. Most of the ads on the Internet does not meet those requirements. We must also search for new advertising solutions. Formats introduced by us (eg, screening with clickable wallpaper) is a perfect illustration of that is possible to merge barnding effect of ad with big number of click in the ad.

Commentary: On one hand I understand the Internet users who hate online advertisement. Honestly – from time to time I’m considering to start using AdBlock. However I do not do this for two reasons. First, I understand that publishers need to earn. I know very well that running a website generates costs that must be covered. But no one does business only to cover costs. If publishers do not make money on advertising, they will begin to make money on subscriptions. But I doubt it’s possible to avoid advertisements even in subscription model. It may not be invasive, but do not disappear, we should not delude up. Therefore, with respect to publishers I do not deprive them income. Secondly, I’m not using AdBlock of professional curiosity, I just like to know what is happening in the advertising. Another thing that when I tested Adblock (this was long ago and this could change), the plugin was able to cut out the parts of websites that are not advertisement. How will the future of advertising online look like? AdBlock will not defeat online advertisement. Rather, we can expect more video ads. I also feel that the ads would be bigger and louder than at present, although in this case I would be wrong.