Ad Industry Getting Closer to Mitigating Problem of Ad-Blocking Software, Says ANA

Since May, when the boards of three major advertising associations met to discuss the problem with ad-blocking software that's costing billions of dollars in ad revenue, the industry is getting closer to better addressing the issue, said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president-government relations for the Association of National Advertisers, in a Thursday blog post. Since that meeting among ANA, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and Interactive Advertising Bureau, the ad community created the Coalition for Better Ads initiative to develop and implement new worldwide standards for online ads that meet consumer needs, Jaffe said. "We are making major progress in developing data in the U.S. and worldwide on what aspects of advertising are creating the highest levels of consumer annoyance and ad avoidance," he wrote. "We believe that shortly we will be able to provide criteria and data to help advertisers significantly mitigate these problems and lessen incentives for ad blocking." He cited "troubling" statistics from a Wednesday PageFair study that said 11 percent of internet users globally implemented ad blockers. If this continues, blocking could undermine content and information on the internet, most of which is supported through advertising revenue, said Jaffe. The ad industry has taken some of the blame for the rise of ad blockers by allowing annoying and bad advertising to be delivered and not addressing users' fears that some ads contain malware (see 1609090057).