TitelAdblock
Agentur
PostedNovember 2016
Story Campaign background
The European Media Alliance is an informal group that assembles the Europe’s biggest Media industry associations. This includes in print, on TV, and online across all platforms and devices. The European Media Alliance has asked the University of Applied Sciences to come up with a communication campaign about the critical role of advertising in funding the provision of high quality and free online content and services by informing European citizens who use the internet to access information, communicate with each other, conduct commercial transactions online, watch films and listen to music.
In order to come up with a creative strategy that suits the target audience the following question is researched: What does an effective marketing communications campaign look like in order to informthe target group about the advantages and importance of online ads?
For years the biggest revenue of digital platforms and online publications has been online advertising. Unfortunately this is not appreciated by consumers, since they do not realize that the production of online content is only possible because digital advertising revenues support it. In the past years the usage of Ad Blocking technology increased enormously, making it harder for digital platforms to survive.
If this continues, companies and people that provide editorial content and platforms that deliver have to start charging for their services. This means that the principle of free access to information will be undermined. Roughly all digital platforms and online publications can only survive if they start charging for information or when people allow advertisements on their devices again. To continue independent journalism, it is important to create a campaign to inform the public of the critical role played by advertising on digital platforms in funding the continuation of free high quality, online content and services.
Prioritized objectives
The main campaign objective is to increase awareness about the consequences of ad blockers at the end of a two year campaign:• The number of downloads of ad blockers is decreased by 10%;• The awareness of the advantages of online advertisements amongst the target group is increased by 40%;• The target groups perception is changed from “online ads are very annoying, useless and wasting my time” to “I now understand the role that advertising plays in bringing me content and services that I like. I am prepared to accept advertising on digital platforms I use because it enables me to access most of my favorite content for free.”
Proposed strategy & tac
The target audience are European citizens who use the internet to access information, communicate with each other, conduct commercial transactions online, watch films and listen to music segmented on young adults between 18-25 whose consumption of free online content and services is made possible by advertising. People aged between 18 and 25 influence each other in their decision making process. The younger generation grew up with online content and the knowledge about this subject. Therefore they are more involved than other generations and have more influence in the decision making process.With this campaign we want to increase the awareness about the consequences of ad blockers amongst our target group. When the target audience stops downloading ad blockers, content will remain free for everybody. The message has to be transferred in a positive, helpful and confident way while still being informative and honest. The focus of this campaign is “Block what is wanted”, this campaign has to show the target group what they miss while using ad blockers.
The idea is to show commercials, advertisements and other content that the target group likes and block the most important or appealing part of the expression. At the end of every demonstration the following slogan will appear:
Creative brief
The main objective of this campaign is to create brand awareness concerning the consequences of ad blockers for websites. Besides that, the campaign should realize a direct response: no longer downloading or uninstalling the software. There are not much people in the target audience who know the consequences of installing ad blocking for brands and companies.With the campaign Alpha wants to show the target audience what nice content they miss on the internet when they have an ad blocker on their device. The tag line that is used in the advertisements is: ‘Don’t (b)lock yourself out!’
When the target audience is aware of what they miss, they will be withdrawing the ad blockers software from their device because of intrinsic motivation. This is much more efficient than a company or brand telling them they must uninstall it.
Alpha has made evidence that will convince the target audience to believe that they really do miss nice content on the internet when they have installed ad blockers. This evidence consists of examples ofonline and offline advertisements. Alpha has made some video spots and advertisements that hides the part that everybody wants to see.
Creative execution
The campaign emphasizes how ad blockers effect digital platforms and online publications. They can’t exist without the revenue of online advertising. That is why the statement: don’t (b)lock yourself out is used. This is to make the audience aware of the influence they (unconsciously) have on digital platforms and online publications. The slogan is followed by several consequences caused by ad blocking for the audience.The slogan, in combination with appealing backgrounds, will draw the attention of the target audience.This way the campaign will be remembered.
Media plan
We will use social media. This decision is based on the outcomes of our survey. The respondents are using their smartphones and laptops the most. Therefore the usage of social media in our campaign will reach the biggest part of our target group. According to our research, TV is the third most used medium. Therefore we have chosen to use this medium to communicate our campaign. Our young target group travels a lot to go to work or school. Therefore we have chosen to use outdoor advertising in the form of bus shelters and billboards.
Suitable measures for assessing the proposed campaign's successThere are a few suitable measures for assessing the proposed campaign’s success. At first, it is important to look how many downloads of the software there are before the campaign starts. In this way there can be a measurement at certain moments, to see if there are less downloads. In this way the media schedule or creative concept can be adjusted to realize the best possible results.The campaign is also offline. The best way to measure if the campaign is seen is to use the customer tracking survey. This can be done face to face, through telephone or web based interviews.
Additional information
Campaign summaryThe main campaign objective is to increase awareness about the consequences of ad blockers amongst our target group. The idea is to show commercials, advertisements and other content that the target audience likes and block the most important or appealing part of the expression. At the end of every demonstration the following slogan will appear: Don’t (b)lock yourself out.
The message has to be transferred in a positive, helpful and confident way while still being informative and honest. This campaign has to show the target group what they miss while using ad blockers.