“Ad-blocking is Not the Apocolypse” says PageFair’s Ryan #NVF16

The industry’s response to ad-blocking tends to evoke a range of emotions, swinging between: denial (“we’re doing everything correctly”); anger  (“they’re stealing our content!”); and guilt (“we’ve been very naughty and need to respect the consumer more”). These responses are all understandable as ad-blocking is such a complicated issue, and is also one where the various actors – consumers, advertisers, publishers, ad tech vendors and ad-blockers – all have motivations that conflict in one way or another with at least some of the others. However, as Johnny Ryan, Head of Ecosystem at PageFair, explained at New Video Frontiers last week,  the ‘blocked web’ isn’t an arid wasteland, but provides the advertising industry with an opportunity.