Facebook and AdBlock Plus's ongoing battle over the appearance of advertising on the social network has no real end in sight, but in the meantime the flap presents an important lesson for CMOs.
As Techcrunch duly reports, AdBlock and Facebook issued a series of dueling code shipments, with AdBlock firing the first shot in the form of an workaround to Facebook's ad-blocker bypass. Facebook issued its own workaround to that workaround, AdBlock came up with another, and... you get the idea.
There's a fundamental debate at play between the two sides. Facebook argues that AdBlock's code was clumsily written and managed to block legitimate user posts along with ads. The social network also says it's been trying to give users more granular control over the ads they see, in the interest of better targeting.
AdBlock Plus rejects that position, stating in a blog post:
Anger or blame toward ad blockers is misdirected; we merely enforce “the will of the people” (via the open-sourced filter lists)…it’s disheartening that a company like Facebook would abuse everyone’s experience of their site by forcing that experience into a one-size-fits-all, see-the-ads-or-else tube.
AdBlock Plus provides exceptions for websites that agree to follow an extensive set of design rules for online ads. It also charges licensing fees for these "white-listing" services from "larger entities," a practice that has been labeled a form of ransom by critics.
Meanwhile, caught in the middle of the flap are CMOs who want to reach end users with messages they actually want to see.
"For CMOs and marketers of the future, you really have to rethink your advertising strategy," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Cindy Zhou. "It's about putting much more control into the users' hands by being very targeted and personalized to their interests."
Moreover, "marketers have to be a lot more intelligent about the requirements and nuances of each social platform," Zhou adds. "Gone are the days of generic ads, making one version and then putting it out to all these platforms."
Zhou points to LinkedIn, which doesn't accept traditional banner ads. Rather, LinkedIn uses "sponsored posts," which force advertisers to make an effort to write business content with value for their intended audience.
Then there's the fact that users are becoming desensitized to online ads, as well as increasingly irritated by new types that manage to pop-under, scroll-over and otherwise hamper the user experience. "Brands are starting to understand that those types of ads are actually damaging their brand more than helping it," Zhou says. "If you care about your brand, as a marketer you don't want to be associated with practices that annoy users."
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