Ad Fraud in 2016: A Call for Creativity

Ad fraud and ad blocking have become household words for marketers and publishers. In the month of December, searching “ad fraud” on Google News yielded over 200 results. At first while reading news articles, ad fraud seems to indicate doom for the advertising technology industry. There is, however, a major benefit of ad fraud for the industry in 2016: welcome to the creative revolution.

The need for creative ads is no secret. Paul Armstrong, founder of HERE/FORTH, stated that “Ad-fraud is a serious issue for the creative community as much as the ad-tech community with recent reports putting the amount of content at risk from ad fraud around 34%.[1]” In addition, Kristina Knight from BizReport talked to the need to emphasize the importance of creativity and personalization to avoid ad blocking and ad fraud more generally.

So, what does a creative revolution entail? Creating “better” ads is not the solution to the industry fraud. Rather, producing the necessary technology (like native ads which are paired with the correct form and function of the platform they are shown on) will allow the delivery of creative advertisements and in turn, push for another revolution: how people view advertisements. Instead of commercial breaks and advertisements being viewed as an interruption, all advertisements need to be equivalent to the highly anticipated Super Bowl ads.

Curious about the quality of ads that will help spark the advertisement revolution? For people interested in sports, beer, and animals (a majority of Super Bowl viewers), the top rated ad of the 2015 Super Bowl game according to USA Today[2] was a creative Budweiser commercial called “Lost Dog.”[3]

Let 2016 be the year that consumers appreciate an innovative kind of advertising with unique writing, original ads, and creative technology: bring it 2016.

[1] David Kirkpatrick, “34% of mobile programmatic traffic is at risk of fraud: StudyMarketing Dive,” Marketing Dive, Dec. 10, 2015 (http://www.marketingdive.com/news/34-of-mobile-programmatic-traffic-is-at-risk-of-fraud-study/410585/).

[2] “2015 Ad Meter results: All 61 Super Bowl XLIX ads, from best to worst,” USA Today (http://admeter.usatoday.com/results/2015).

[3] Budweiser, “Budweiser USA: #BestBuds | 2015 Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial ‘Lost Dog,’” YouTube, Jan 28, 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsjRRMMg_Q).