Ad-blocking and a flight to quality

This is yet another post about ad-blocking.

Yet another, because seemingly every day there is one sounding the alarm about it as an existential threat. My attitude is pragmatic: it’s a threat for sure, but until we have independent data on current consumer adoption (particularly in the US) and see what happens with iOS9, most conversation about this amount to “what if’s”.

And I understand the “what ifs”. I spent a day with an ad-blocker installed (more on that in the coming weeks) and it was 100% effective. I understand that there’s a chance that ad-blocking goes mainstream.

There are many articles that talk about the implications of what might happen if indeed it does go mainstream. One theory is that it might cause a “flight to quality” in ads — to so-called native ads which consumers supposedly enjoy.

One theory that I have yet to see discussed broadly is that ad-blocking could cause a much different kind of flight to quality*. Media quality.

Let’s say ad-blocking adoption skyrockets. And publishers, rather than face extinction, begin to react. Currently, a handful of publishers are using ad-blocker detection technology to communicate the relationship between content and advertising with consumers. What if they began using similar detection technology to restrict access to content completely for users with ad-blockers installed? CBS is already doing this with its online video platforms.

What if those publishers asked consumers to whitelist them in order to be able to access content.

This would be a flight to media quality. An old colleague of mine used to call it “media that matters”. Publishers whose content is unique and matters enough to consumers to be whitelisted naturally survive and in fact thrive in this scenario.

Others — perhaps those we see on Facebook or in those “recommended content” boxes at the bottom of many websites, who use clickbait headlines and imagery to entice users to sites with low quality content just to serve up to a dozen different ads on the page — probably will not.

As an industry, we could see many benefits. Inventory supply-demand economics could balance out. Pressure on CPMs would begin to normalize, giving way to fewer but better, higher-value digital ad experiences. It would give brands an opportunity to invest more in digital (as they already want to), knowing it is a cleaner and better user experience they are supporting. And it would help publishers thrive, which is crucial for the future of media and advertising.

This is obviously a “what if” scenario, like many others. But one with many positive outcomes.

*Thank you to Darren Herman and Ari Paparo for their inspiration on this topic via Twitter.

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