Junkee Media pledges to ditch display ads, claims half of all millennials use adblockers

Didn’t Junkee announce this very thing when they launched the site, only to introduce banner ads a couple of weeks later?

Between Junkee, Pedestrian, Allure and Buzzfeed there’s only so much advertorial thumbstopping clickbait one person can handle. We’ve reach peak bait.

I liked Junkee more when it was doing interesting things with brands. Like that Qantas thing they discussed at M360. Nothing they’ve articulated above seems particularly bold or new. This outburst is like a cry for attention….

And let’s face it, January and February were terrible months in media..

For a site that sits at #133 on Nielsen Market Intelligence in Australia (with just 22k avg daily UBs in Feb), Junkee sure like to make it sound like they’re revolutionising digital media, when in reality Tim Duggan’s quotes just read like -a bunch of Digiday headlines. From 18 months ago.

‘ . . . 55% of Australian millennials (18-34 year olds) are already using adblockers.’
No surprise or mystery behind popularity of adblockers.
The reason? No one likes shit ads.

Thanks for explaining the millennials age bracket, there. If only there were more articles on the internet about the beliefs, behaviours and wants of millennials to help us understand this unique generation, unlike anything that has come before. Would make our jobs so much easier.

Junkee. The media brand that realllyy likes the sound of its own voice way to much.

Is it 50% of the millennials that visit Junkee Media sites that use ad blockers? The sample size is quite small and given its audience not really reflective of a very large demographic. Haven’t seen any other data that suggests that 50% of ALL millennials use ad blockers, otherwise wouldn’t the volumes of display inventory in the market have collapsed in the last 6-12 months?

I’d say the fact their web traffic has been dismal of late is why they are try to push the focus away from their poor results. They can’t sustain their current business model with the small amount of traffic they currently generate. Everyone knows there is a move towards native advertising and social publishing. This has been a focus of a number of publishers over the past few years. Advertisers will still buy banners going forward. Millennials don’t have as blocker on their phone and 80% of traffic in that bracket come from mobile. This statement has a whiff of desperation, maybe we are close to the end for junkee media…

That’s a dick comment Andrew. They’re just responding to an audience insight. Smart move if you ask me.

Pretty funny that a site that launched themselves as a mobile platform site is now citing ad blocker as a reason for business decisions. No one uses ad blocker on mobiles. Andrew is right, 80% of millennial traffic comes from mobile devices so there shouldn’t be much effect as a result of ad blocker

I’ve been boycotting advertising for nigh on 50 years, starting with commercial TV and radio, and moving on to PCs, then tablets and phones. Believe me, many people use various tactics to block bandwidth sucking awful screen obscuring ads on their portable devices. A combination of ad blockers and browsers on which Java can be disabled is extremely effective.
Most ads try to override content and make it unreadable. Who knows why advertisers think this is a winning strategy, but it makes killing their product off very very satisfying. And they never will be missed, they never will be missed.

Haha, you haven’t found the ad block settings on your phone hey Geoff? Get With the times Geoff the kids are doing it.

If you think you have any kind of future as a digital publisher based on the revenues that banner ads will generate, you likely won’t be around in 12-24 months time. Criticising Junkee for having the foresight to plan and strategise for this just makes you look foolish. Whether or not you agree with their approach, you can’t deny it is rooted in logic.

And if you think ad blocking on mobile doesn’t exist, go search the app store – there’s more than 100 ad blocking apps there. It’s one of the fastest growing categories, which coincidentally started to mushroom in popularity right around the same time Apple launched their own News app (where you can’t block ads, so they keep a slice of that revenue). Apple have a vested interest in actively pushing mobile ad blocking apps to drive more display revenue into their own News app.

“I’ve been boycotting advertising for nigh on 50 years”

What the hell do you think pays for your entertainment then? Milk bottle tops?

T H – you’re spot on!

All publishers must be evaluating their future revenue streams, and not for increased profits but to simply stay alive….sadly without ad revenue how do you pay for content, if you can’t pay for content how do you collect ad revenue? vicious cycle

The big guys…think Apple/Google/Facebook are all kings in the distribution world….they rule their respective channels and with likes of new products from FB and Apple one might have to flip the old saying;

Content is King NO MORE……perhaps Distribution is King!

Agree TH well said!

Native content is really just paid advertising articles…..I wont bother with sites that I know are taking money for content instead of reporting and writing content that might interest me. Seriously if I wanted that I would find a 24 hour advertising channel.

Not everyone has their head in social media, Im finding more and more are wanting to engage within the ‘real world’ with people instead of reading other peoples opinions and telling them why they are wrong.