In September last year (2016), Facebook conceded publicly that they had over-estimated the average time viewers spent on video on their site by 60-80%. They did not tell us how long they had known of this ‘error’ but I suspect it was for quite a while, as they aggressively pushed the ‘video first’ bandwagon.
It does not seem to have dented the volume of money going into the coffers of the GooFace (Google/Facebook) digital advertising duopoly, although it may have slowed a little after Mark Pritchard, the CMO of Procter and Gamble with an ad budget in the billions fired both barrels at the stupidity, complicity and fraud that underpins the digital advertising industry.
Digital advertising has been blighted not just by hype, hyperbole, fraud, but by tracking, and we know it is a blight, because something like 700 million devises now have ad blockers installed, and the big platforms are increasingly removing the ‘skip ad’ option that was initially in place.
GooFace make almost all their money from ads, and cross site tracking is a fundamental part of their arsenal, which they will protect at all costs. Making all sorts of claims supported by flimsy data, and more hyperbolic assertions (I suspect they will make tobacco companies look like beginners when they get a bit more practice) is to be expected. Apple by contrast make almost no money out of advertising, so has loudly rattled the cage by announcing a new feature on an upgrade of Safari that prevents cross site tracking.
Brilliant.
I wonder who will follow suit, as the march of subscription services without ads together with the blockers, must be biting deeply into advertising effectiveness, assuming we could see and analyse the data objectively.
Follow up Nov. 8, 2017. Has the charm offensive stated? This article in Marketing Week would suggest it has.
