Pop-up ads, spam content requesting likes, comments and shares, auto-play video ads with sound, ads with countdown, full-screen scroll-overs and ads featuring suggestive content could soon be a thing of the past for some of the world’s largest advertising stakeholders such as Facebook, Google, Unilever, GroupM, Microsoft and Publicis Groupe.
All are members of Coalition for Better Ads (CBA), an international self-regulation body for advertisers, which has revised standards with immediate effect, and are over and above what individual companies already follow.
“Such ads fall beneath the coalition’s standards, beneath a threshold of consumer acceptability and are likely to drive consumers to install ad blockers,” said Stephan Loerke, chief executive, World Federation of Advertisers, also a member of CBA.
The Coalition for Better Ads set the standards on the basis of feedback from markets representing 70% of global online ad spending. They are being rolled out in all countries where member companies operate, including India.
A spokesperson for Facebook India told ET in an email response that advertisers should expect a series of revised filters from it. “With our expanded enforcement, advertisers should expect that individual ads with low-quality attributes will see reduced distribution in our ad auction, or will be disapproved. This applies to all advertisers, but since we tend to see more of these characteristics in ads related to media, entertainment, politics or issues of national importance, they may be impacted more.”
The spokesperson added that Facebook’s existing policies include restrictions on ads with low-quality or disruptive content.
Largest media investment group GroupM’s managing partner (brand safety), Joe Barone said the coalition has encouraged the global adoption of standards by its members. “The premise is simple: What’s right for the consumers is always the right answer for the advertiser,” Barone said. GroupM represents Unilever, Adidas and Mars.
Detailing how the standards would pan out on Chrome, Google senior director of Chrome Ben Galbraith said in a blog post, “Following the coalition’s lead, beginning July 9, 2019, Chrome will expand its user protections and stop showing all ads on sites in any country that repeatedly display disruptive ads.” He added that Chrome’s own advertising platforms have stopped selling ads that violate these standards and generate complaints.
“We are a global member of the Coalition for Better Ads and will be implementing learnings globally to always ensure we are providing the best content and ad experiences for our consumers,” said a spokesperson for HUL.
The CBA’s standards will be implemented by companies and platforms on their individual timelines and have identified ad experiences that rank the lowest with the highest probability of consumers blocking them.
Facebook spokesperson said multiple ads flagged with low-quality attributes may impact the performance of all ads from that advertiser. These would typically be ads with spammy content asking people to engage with it in specific ways, such as requesting likes, comments and shares, ads that purposefully withhold information to entice people to click in order to understand the full context, ads that use exaggerated headlines or command a reaction from people but don’t deliver on the landing page, ads featuring sexually suggestive or shocking content and malicious or deceptive ads, and popup ads which disrupt the user experience.
“Low-quality ads on Facebook, such as ones that include clickbait or direct people to unexpected content, create bad experiences for people and don’t align with our goal of creating connections between people and businesses,” she added.
Google, on the other hand, is directing website owners to consider reviewing their site status in an ‘ad experience report,’ a tool that helps publishers understand if Chrome has identified any violating ad experiences.
“While we’ve already reviewed millions of sites around the world, we will continue to expand these reviews in the coming months. We’ve also taken action to protect Chrome users from certain types of advertising that diminish their experiences online, a common complaint among Chrome users,” Galbraith said.
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