Laura Desmond Meets with Advertising Students at UT, Learns Why They Block Ads

Stan Talks is a library of short videos produced by the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin.

This new talk, released last month, features Laura Desmond, founder and CEO of Eagle Vista Partners in Chicago. Desmond is intent on building the agency of the future, using data, content, and analytics.

The media executive reflects on students’ perspectives on adblocking. She asks, “Why do they ad block?” She answers, “Expectations and relevance.”

Here’s the heart of the message she’s relaying…

1. They expect more for their time and attention. They simply do not want to sit through pop up ads, banners, displays, or 30-second videos or commercials that are not entertaining, not fun, and not informative.
2. They respect and give serious credibility to ads, content, and memes that get through their adblocking software because they believe it was more targeted and embedded into content that they care about and therefore more effective.
3. They expect advertising to be relevant, and for advertisers to take them seriously as consumers. They want better targeting. They want more creativity. They are begging for brands to be more vulnerable, real, and authentic.

“Authentic” is a buzzword, but as it relates to customer data, it’s quite specific. The advertising students want brands to be upfront about what happens to their data. It’s far from too much to ask, along with their other common-sense objectives for a healthy industry.

I’m reminded of the famous words of ad legend, Howard Luck Gossage. “I long for the day when advertising will become a business for a grown man.”

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