Do Ad-blockers have social media influencers in their sights?

Ad-blockers could soon be targeting social media influencers and sponsored content according to a recent report in PR Week.

Speaking at a Social Media Week fringe event in London last week, Matt Sykes, head of social and content experiences at Tata Communications told the audience that he considered it just a matter of time before someone made a script which blocked sponsored content highlighted with a #ad, #spon or similar hashtag as dictated by industry watchdogs like the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Despite this, Sykes stressed that it was important for advertising agencies and hired social media influencers to identify sponsored content correctly, even though this declaration can make content seem less authentic.

Sykes said: “With the best of intentions, marketing people do tend to spam people.”

Speaking at the same event, Devin Moore, global social activation and channel manager at Microsoft, told the audience that his reaction to seeing sponsored content from brands on influencers channels he follows was: “”ooh, why did you have to pay them?”.

The opinion that ad-blockers would soon be targeting sponsored content will no doubt be major concern to a number of big brands and their agencies, who see sponsored content as a mechanism for navigating routes to their audience which have been firmly shut by ad-blocking technology.

It is estimated that one in five adults in the UK currently use ad-blocking software across a range of devices, restricting brand’s reach via online advertising channels and cutting off vital sources of revenue to online publishers.

The world’s most popular ad-block software provider, Adblock Plus, who are currently fighting a war of attrition with Facebook who have vowed to block the ad-blockers, recently sparked more controversy by announcing they were entering the advertising sales business, although initial efforts to enter the market have not been without their problems.