Home » Has Technology Stuffed The Advertising Industry? (And Why Ad Blocking Will only Get Worse)

28 September, 2016

Has Technology Stuffed The Advertising Industry? (And Why Ad Blocking Will only Get Worse)

Technology has become more ubiquitous in the advertising industry than sneakers, beards and novelty T-shirts, but one commentator says that rather than be a boon for business all the wizardry’s actually proven a disaster.

Controversial US Professor, David Carroll (pictured below), a specialist in media design from The New School’s Parsons, believes all the tech has actually had a negative impact on the industry.

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Speaking to the tech site Digiday, Carroll said: “Subjectively speaking, it seems like advertising online is almost ruined.

“We don’t see advertising that people want anymore. The idea that technology was good for advertising doesn’t seem to have played out.”

And when it came to ad blocking, Carroll believed the problem would only get worse. He argued that it was young people who were using the software to block ads and hence the problem was entrenched and here to stay.

“When consumers push back, it’s a sign to the industry that it’s overdoing it,” he said. “It needs to make fewer, more valuable [ad] opportunities — and this idea that people must accept it is based on a fallacy.”

Carroll also believed that Facebook was to blame for the rise of ad blocking.

“We see evidence of Facebook censoring media, so it’s not the same as an open web. We see instances of Google’s algorithm affecting access to information. When you grant gatekeepers this kind of power, we are limiting the ability of a professional organisation to inform the public.

“It’s becoming really difficult to not use Facebook,” he said. “It’s becoming an essential part of functioning in society, to have a Facebook account. You’re expected to maintain one. This general expectation makes it really difficult to opt out of that. With Google, many people have Google at work so they have to be on Google. And the minute you send someone an email on Gmail, all of your participation is on Google. I don’t know if that idea that you can just not use it and still function in society is possible.”

Read the full Digiday story here.

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