
Publishers Are Rethinking Those 'Around the Web' Ads - dredmorbius
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/business/media/publishers-rethink-outbrain-taboola-ads.html
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dredmorbius
While these ads -- Taboola, Outbrain, and related article teasers -- are
blocked on desktop and on Firefox/Android for me, I've been seeing them,
despite a router hosts blocklist on numerous mainstream publishing sites.

My first response is a sense of horror that a mainstream publisher -- Vox, the
Atlantic Monthly, Time, Forbes, etc. -- would even deign to have such low-
quality advertising on their website. The impression to me is nothing less
than brand-equity mining -- deliberately undermining confidence in your own
product among any reader who sees the spots. So this _NY Times_ article caught
my eye, and the sentiments expressed are strongly congruent with mine: "[S]ome
publishers are wondering about the effect these so-called content ads may be
having on their brands and readers".

A couple of related observations:

1\. Who does the _Times_ think it's helping by, so far as I can tell,
disabling copy/past via javascript? The only thing this does is make my
sharing its content across other sites that much more difficult, and
frequently correspondingly unlikely. Eyeballs aren't quite dollars, but
they're part of the path there.

2\. I've been looking at print publications and noting with an increasing
level of shock the lack of advertising in them. A recent issue of _Time_ had
perhaps a dozen or so ads, few of any particular significance, and the
_Chicago Tribune_ , to which friends subscribe, appears to have difficulty
maintaining a 50:50 advertising:content ratio (I'm more used to a 60:40 or
70:30 level).

What's most telling is what's _not_ being advertised: automobiles, alcohol,
luxury items, grocery stores (in the newspaper), the type of B2B and corporate
marquee advertising which used to be common in magazines. _Time_ had, if I
recall, pharmaceuticals, a minor travel listing, a financial services company,
a couple of snack-food adverts, and a mobile services ad so poorly designed I
thought it was for the company's retail partner (whom I did recognise).

Print is being gutted.

It's not that I _like_ ads -- I don't. But recognising that they're how the
industry's paid its bills, and that it's clearly not now, is another thing. At
this point, newspapers and news magazines are going to have to turn to
subscribers. Possibly a good thing, as the actual _content_ in both _Time_ and
the Trib is abysmally poor.

As for Outbrain and Taboola, I recommend for them "This one weird trick will
destroy you and your customer's trust and value!"

