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More consumers pay for ad-blockers

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 19 Apr 2016
Four in 10 consumers would pay to eliminate ad interruptions, an Accenture study finds.
Four in 10 consumers would pay to eliminate ad interruptions, an Accenture study finds.

More and more consumers are embracing ad-blocking technology, thereby threatening the future of the digital advertising market.

This is according to a recent study conducted by Accenture. The survey, which involved 28 000 consumers across 28 countries, including SA, discovered that four in 10 (42%) said they would pay to eliminate ad interruptions.

Ad-blockers are technological methods for automatically removing or altering advertising content such as videos, images and text on a Web page. The blockers enable TV, smartphone, tablet and PC users to load video files more quickly, view more clean-looking Web pages, reduce bandwidth consumption, and increase their privacy by removing the tracking and profiling systems of video advertising delivery platforms.

Ad-blocking flurry

The survey findings come at a time when some tech companies are incorporating ad-blocking technology into their offerings. Norwegian company Opera last month announced it was introducing a new version of its desktop computer browser that promises to load Web pages faster by incorporating ad-blocking, a move that makes reining in advertising a basic feature instead of an afterthought.

In February, multinational mobile operator Three introduced network-level ad-blocking across its UK and Italian branches. Apple also recently enabled ad-blocking apps through its mobile operating system, iOS 9.

A recent study by Adobe and PageFair notes ad-blocking cost publishers nearly $22 billion during 2015. It adds there are now nearly 200 million active ad-block users around the world.

"Ad-blockers are a relatively new threat to the digital advertising industry," says Gavin Mann, Accenture's global broadcast industry lead.

"Consumers are increasingly willing to pay for blockers because too many ads are poorly targeted. In today's world of personalised content, being forced to watch an ad that has no relevance is a missed opportunity and feels increasingly intrusive on precious screen-time. In fact, simple avoidance of content associated with heavy and repetitive irrelevant advertising will increase as consumer choice and awareness of choice increases."

Awareness trends

The survey found young consumers are especially aware of ad-blockers compared with older age groups. More than two-thirds (69%) of those aged 18 to 24 years, and almost the same number (66%) of those between 25 and 34 years, say they know about ad-interruption technologies.

Awareness of ad-blocking methods is more prevalent among consumers in emerging than in developed markets, says Accenture. For instance, two-thirds (65%) of respondents in emerging-market countries said they know about ad-blockers compared with 58% in mature-market countries. Awareness of these technologies is especially high in Mexico (82%), whereas only 55% of consumers in the UK know about ad-blockers, it adds.

Regionally, ad-blocker awareness is especially pervasive in Latin America (78%) and the Middle East (69%). In addition, consumers in emerging markets are significantly more likely than those in mature markets - 47% versus 34% - to say they plan to pay to expunge ad interruptions.

"There's no point in following the music industry's failed attempts at thwarting piracy," Mann adds. "It's futile to focus all efforts on trying to outsmart ever-evolving ad-blocking technologies to force audiences to watch ads. The industry needs to do everything possible to make ads less of an infringement on precious screen time, by building on early successes that deliver targeted, relevant and entertaining ads - in a creative style appreciated by the individual."

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