StartUp Lab of ADandPRLAB: Ad Block Challenge

In our third year of studies in the department of Communication, Media and Culture of Panteion University we had to deal with some really interesting challenges in the context of Startup Lab of AD and PR Lab. Those challenges were: an app for Coca Cola to interact with its younger audiences, Digital advertising that could be included to internet of things, Ad Blocking, Facebook and Google dominance, and for a better Mobile experience. All the teams had to choose one of the challenges and we as a team chose the challenge of digital advertising in Ad Blocking.

According to the data that was given to us by Eric Parks and Giannis Sorotos, Ad Blocking has caused the advertising industry over 22 billion dollars only in the year of 2015. Now, two years later that number has definitely been tripled. Moreover, Mobile data firm priori data, found that more than a fifth of the world’s internet users, or in other words 419 million people, have installed some kind of mobile Ad Blocking software on their smartphones. There have been various attempts to solve this (EG industry voluntary codes, legal), but all have had limited success. As the years go by more and more users install Ad Block to their smartphones or computers to avoid watching ads, when they use their favorite apps, for example YouTube, or when they’re watching an online movie.

The challenge for us was to come up with a startup solution that would allow advertisers to deal with this issue. As a team we organized small interviews with people from our social circle to find out how many of them have installed Ad Block on their technical devices. The outcome was as we expected it to be: 100% answered yes. But an unexpected result was that almost 1/3 of the users were positive to the idea of uninstalling Ad Block if they were to use our suggested platform Block Value, that would include native advertising and provide a user friendly online environment. Our startup solution in other words is an idea of a platform that advertisers use to promote their products in a native way so that the user won’t find it annoying, and won’t skip it.

Supervisors: Betty Tsakarestou, Katerina Vlassopoulou

The Team: Anastasia Zapadioti, Izabella Kefala, Fotini Panavou, Vasilis Plegas, Margaret Georgiadou