What if Goodeed could counter (b)ad blocking?
As of June 2015, 198 million monthly active Internet users block ads. In 2015, the number of people using ad-blocking software globally grew by 41% year over year. The usage of ad blocking is growing exponentially, and the loss of global revenue due to blocked advertising during 2015 was estimated at 21.8 billion dollars. And as mobile usage continues to increase, ad blocking on mobiles follows suit.
In Asia, the number of people using ad blocking software on their mobiles is climbing, mainly because users often have limited data plans, so ad blockers help prevent their data consumption being used up by advertisements rather than the actual content they’re trying to access.
In the spring of 2016, in France, a number of media & news websites told readers that if they didn’t deactivate ad blockers on their websites, they could no longer access the content. Indeed, for many news companies, 50% of their total revenue is generated from online advertisements.
Ad blocking poses a real threat to media and the free World Wide Web as we know it. But we all completely understand how this phenomenon has grown so quickly – because of annoying, crappy, and invasive online advertisements.
Polls have shown that Internet users are ready and willing to remove their ad blockers if advertisements were better targeted, more linked to the content they are viewing, and consequently of more interest to them. So how can advertising survive and be of better use to everyone?
What if the solution to ad blocking lied in making people happy to see advertisements?
Goodeed, created in France in 2014 by then 18-year-old Vincent Touboul Flachaire, is a great initiative in the modernization of advertising. Goodeed is an online platform on which people from all over the world can donate to charity organizations – for free – just by watching sponsored advertisements. Viewers can choose between planting trees, sending vaccines or offering meals, simply by giving their time to watch a 20 second ad. Goodeed partners with various NGOs including the UN World Food Programme, UNICEF, and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The revenue generated from watching the advertisements funds the donation. Today, over 600 thousand trees have been planted, 540 thousand vaccines distributed, and 540 thousand meals.
There is no question that advertising must reinvent itself for the digital and mobile world we now fully inhabit. Higher quality ads, strategically targeted, that you, yes even YOU, would be interested in seeing, i.e. special offers at an upcoming vacation destination - not one you have just travelled to.
Goodeed is proof that advertising can be of good use –for the sponsor, the publisher, and the viewer – and in this case, the receivers of the donation.
We must strive for higher quality advertising that better targets consumers – show them content they are actually interested in and that can actually do good. Because ads for baby wipes are only of use to you if you’re a new parent.
Enterprise Account Executive @ Ruume | Your next favourite online meeting is here. 🚀
8yDepending on the CPMs the advertisers are paying you, I have difficulty in understanding what kind donation (in terms of monetary value) is being done here. Let's consider a $8 CPM for the video ads shown on your site. CPM = Cost per Mille (or thousand views). Taking the number on your home page for trees we come to the following: 610k @ $8 CPM = $4,880 (approx.). Can you provide more insight? Looking overall, the site may have generated $15,000 worth of donations.
B2B marketing leader challenging the "so what?" to deliver business growth
8yI think it might work if the problem of targeting / impacting on user experience is sorted. Bear in mind how cynical and annoyed people are becoming with online ads. Not solving these problems and serving the same "crappy" ads under the guise of "but you'll help a worthy cause" doesn't seem like it will make people "happy" to see them. Probably more cynical, or maybe that's just me!
General Creative Director Emozion sinfonía creativa (+29K )
8yInteresante
SEO Consultant, Founder of Optimisey
8yAn interesting contribution to the ongoing debate around Ad Blocking. I agree with Vincenzo, this example does seem a little contrived (but no more so than some of the awful, intrusive, obstructive advertising on many sites). I think you summed it up Nicolas: "We must strive for higher quality advertising that better targets consumers – show them content they are actually interested in and that can actually do good." - do that and users will object less. Enhance their online experience, don't disrupt it.
Process Engineer at Sanofi
8y"So how can advertising survive and be of better use to everyone?" Not being a major attack vector for malware would be a good start. It's unconscionable for executives at the likes of the New York Times to claim that people who block ads are unworthy of reading good journalism not weeks after ads on the NYT site pushed malware to readers' computers. Ad blocking is not the problem - it is a symptom. There's no solution to it. Ads are the problem, and targeting, scrutiny of submitted ads, and a little bit of care is a solution. Goodeed is a nice idea, but it doesn't, to me, seem to rectify the security and privacy issues that ads continue to cause. And for advertisers and publishers to ignore that they are DEMANDING that users put themselves at risk so that the publishers and advertisers can monetise them, is ridiculous.