Jul 23, 2019

Advertising Beyond Ad Blockers

Last week, CLICKON hosted their second event, ‘Advertising Beyond Ad Blockers’, to share some fresh insights into how brands can connect more with consumers in a world where they are increasingly using ad blockers and paid subscriptions.

Creative Strategy. Television. Print. Repeat.

Traditional advertising models at present do not understand consumers’ behaviour on the social channels they use and as a result, brands are not communicating with them effectively. To make an impact and engage with consumers, things need to change.

Our event, which is the latest in a series of industry insights over breakfast, featured a presentation led by Co-Founder Richard Wilson and Director of Creative Partnerships John Parker, which highlighted compelling consumer insights and how brands can use storytelling to get around ad-blockers and engage their audience.

The morning was rounded off with an expert panel Q&A who shared their insights on our research, alongside their own predictions regarding what storytelling in marketing can offer the world of advertising and how it can improve engagement with consumers. Our panel was made up of industry experts:

  • Jae Hopkins, Marketing and Sales Director at Eurotunnel Le Shuttle,
  • Pete Robb, Marketing Communications Manager at Continental,
  • Chris Sutcliffe, Freelance Journalist at The Drum.

Storytelling Panel

The overarching message attendees took away from the session was the value brands have found in storytelling, and how it’s helped build a lasting connection with consumers.

As the storytelling trend is gaining momentum fast, the challenge of originality and authenticity arises. However, all panellists agreed that storytelling will last the test of time for brands, as no other marketing strategy can quite compete when it comes to building real and lasting emotional connections.

Our insights report, distributed to attendees at the event, contained data collected by our CLICKON Social Labs of over 1,000 participants, providing the stats that back up our claims:

‘People love stories not adverts. People share stories not adverts. People trust stories not adverts.’

Our current partnerships with Red Bull, Eurotunnel, General Tire, and Seafish pay testament to the success of using human stories to build emotional connections with the right audience. If you would like to learn more, download our insights report below:

Screenshot 2019-07-18 at 13.42.29

Link to download

Video of the event


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