Friday Funday . . .

October 20, 2017Uncategorizedgmtartaglia@aol.com

REGULATION IS COMING TO DIGITAL POLITICAL ADS: For decades traditional media has been under a strict set of regulations which require transparency about who’s paying for candidate and issue based Political advertising. It’s the reason why all TV and Radio ads have “paid for by friends of Joe Bag-of-Donuts” at the end of each ad. But up until now there’s been no such requirement for digital ads. However, thanks to the ongoing scandal involving Russian interference of our last election in which foreign operatives allegedly purchased Facebook, Twitter and Google ads to influence US voters, things are about to change. As noted in the attached AdWeek Link a bipartisan group of Senators is preparing to introduce new legislation called the Honest Ads Act, which will require “paid for by” disclosures as well as other record keeping requirements for digital ads. My guess is this will sail through Congress, because it’s hard for any lawmaker to argue against improved transparency in this area.

R.I.P. AUTOPLAY: For years autoplay video ads have been the advertisers’ best friend and the users’ worst advertising nightmare. As the name indicates these ads automatically play as you enter a site or click on content, so you can’t avoid them. This makes for a wildly effective ad unit that’s also annoying as hell. Recently users have become less tolerant of autoplay’s forced view, which is why video completion rates are down and ad blockers are on the rise. Publishers are responding to this behavioral shift as noted in the attached Digiday link. Autoplay video units are being replaced with value exchange-based ads in which the user voluntarily renders an ad in return for some benefit. You’re also seeing more embedded rollover video ads which are also user spawned. Overall this is a positive trend for both consumers and brands, since it eliminates the force feeding of annoying ads which end up making the advertiser look like the bad guy.

TECH-WHILE-DRIIVNG IS MORE DEADLY THAN YOU THINK: For almost 30 years the driving-related fatality rate was steadily decreasing, mostly thanks to safer cars and a crackdown on drunk driving. But as you can see in the image below, auto-related deaths rose 5% this past year and a compounded 14% over the last two years. So what’s going on here? The only real difference in how we drive today vs. just a few years ago is the use of digital technology while driving. Texting is a huge problem. And so is the ever-increasing array of in-car tech which takes our eyes from the road and puts them on the screen. What’s particularly alarming is the spike in deaths of motorcyclists, pedestrians, etc.. This indicates that drivers just aren’t paying attention to things around them the way they used to, and it’s a safe bet that smartphones are the reason why. To make matters worse NHTSA doesn’t even know the true toll tech-distracted driving is having. Take the tragic story at the beginning of the attached Bloomberg link for example. The fatal accident described was clearly caused by a driver using their cell phone, yet it was classified as a generic accident. Examples like this mean the affect connected devices are having on fatal accidents is actually being under reported. This should be a wake up call for all of us. It’s time to start taking distracted driving seriously, because its killing more of us than anyone realizes.