Dive Brief:
- Amid growing fears from marketers and publishers alike over the rise of ad blocking, Vogue UK may have figured out how to engage readers with ads.
- The 2015 British Vogue Business Report based on YouGov research found that 82% of Vogue UK’s online readership (and 94% of its magazine readership) were engaging with its ads. The study polled nearly 3,000 upper-middle-class female readers of Vogue UK between the ages of 20 and 54.
- There are signs that some readers valued the ads as much as the editorial content, with Vogue UK's associate publisher Sallie Berkerey telling Digiday that readers called the ads "genuine" and "trusted."
Dive Insight:
Given the concerns over ad blocking, the results from Vogue UK should offer publishers and marketers a measure of hope. It also lends credence to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's take on the issue at Advertising Week, which is that publishers need to serve better ads to stop consumers from using ad-blocking technology.
Other research from JPMorgan found ad-blocking was more a desktop issue than on mobile devices. But mobile ad blocking has been big news lately with the release of Apple’s iOS 9 and the enablement of ad-blocking capabilities on the mobile Safari browser.
Campbell Foster, director of product marketing at Adobe, told Marketing Dive the issue might even hit video, a key digital marketing channel.
"If ad blocking goes mainstream in digital video, huge amounts of advertising won’t be seen, and will therefore be ineffective. This would then push ad dollars back to TV, reversing a trend," he said. "Interestingly, the demographic group that uses ad blockers most frequently is one that’s highly coveted by advertisers: millennials and gen Z."
