Jide Sobo, Head of Mobile at MEC Interaction

The behavior of avoiding ads has been with us for a long time, in fact, probably since the first ad was developed! I think it has now entered into urban myth status, that the National Grid sees its biggest spike in power at half time in the FA Cup final, as everyone watching at home goes to the kitchen, puts the kettle on, and avoids the ads. Back in the 90’s we had the curse of the pop-up ad, which led to the development of third party pop-up blocking software. By 2004, most web browsers had pop-up blockers built in as standard and another era of ad avoidance came to an end. Of course, before pop-up ads, people had been avoiding TV ads by fast forwarding through the ad breaks on programs they had recorded on their VHS recorder, and they are now doing the same with services such as Sky+. Continue reading →