It has been a turbulent week in mainstream news as well as in digital marketing. Amid all the Google bashing that was the backdrop to this year's Advertising Week in London, however, it might have been easy to have missed the wake-up call the industry was given. It came in the form of Coalition for Better Ads report on user experience. The findings, to be honest, were entirely predicable -- but still, the message needs to conveyed so it can hopefully sink in.
The Coalition was set up at Dmexco last year. I can still remember the call for brands to go along and sign up to add their weight behind the movement that wants to make digital advertising far less intrusive. Whether at the show, before or since, the coalition has done very well in attracting the big names in the world of huge-budget FMCGs such as P&G. The big publishers, Facebook and Google are onboard as well as industry bodies, such as the IAB.
Spend just five minutes online, either on desktop or mobile, and you will instantly realise what consumers find most annoying about their experience.