Anti-experience and the user in control: what reveals the proliferation of adblockers

By Fernando Teixeira, Adobe's head of advertising for Latin America

 

This week, the Google Chrome browser’s native ad blocker called White Filter starts working. Initially available in the US, Canada and Europe, the new feature will not block all ads as traditional adblockers, but those that are considered intrusive. Or, in other words, irrelevant and that hinder the user's browsing experience.

 

Google Chrome's deliberation is not just a consumer victory. More than that, it is a defeat for advertisers who do not deliver good experiences. Establishing a function that blocks naughty ads should be seen as an opportunity for brands to invest in an attempt to deliver compelling digital experiences with relevant communications.

 

The advancement and access to technology, while empowering customers in the relationship with advertisers, opens up infinite possibilities for companies. Through it, today, it is already possible to establish processes and strategies - with great assertiveness - to personalize messages and deliver a truly relevant communication to the consumer at the right time, in the perfect and personal context.

 

We consumers like to be understood and known. This is ... experience! Like the one that our parents or ourselves, especially in the last century, had when going to the sale closest to home, when the seller-consumer relationship had a level of intimacy that made us loyal to that store.

 

The struggle for experience becomes even more fundamental when we notice even more forms of control by the user when accessing digital content. Just look at the growing demand for services like Spotify and Netflix, which give you the option to subscribe so that there is no content breakage by advertising. Again: it is the advancement of technology empowering the consumer. He can decide what he wants and doesn't want to see. When and where. In the same vein, the advent of adblockers follows.

 

Despite the fact that the user has more and more control over how and what he wants or not to access, it is in the good use of advertising spaces on display - including with video platforms - that there are still good opportunities for advertisers to be genuinely relevant in communication with its consumers.

 

For relevance, technological resources. Even with solutions - natively integrated with analytics software, audience segmentation and A / B tests - that allow you to configure, for example, a personalized cross-channel campaign frequency (that is, including social and programmatic networks). These are high-tech devices within the reach of brands that enable the delivery of incredible consumer experiences at different stages of the journey.

 

It is true that forms of control tend to be increasingly available and accessible to the consumer. He has a discernment of when or not to exercise it - especially against anti-experience. The battle to be won is not about the user's ways of controlling content, but about delivering incredible experiences in the vast field of opportunities that is digital advertising - with creativity, technology and human resources that know how to use it effectively.