Vibrant Media reduces native ad weight to combat ad-blocking
Vibrant Media, the native contextual advertising company, has released new technology that reduces native ad product weights by 75% down to 30.5KB, which the company believes will result in fewer ad-blocker downloads. The technology adheres to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) new digital advertising initiative, LEAN (light, encrypted, ad choice supported and non-invasive). This is because the IAB found that 54% of ad-block users do so because adverts slow down their browsing experience. 

by Philip Rosenstein , July 14, 2016

Native contextual advertising company, Vibrant Media, announced on Wednesday the release of new technology that cuts the weight of its native ad products by 75% to 30.5KB. This includes in-text, in-image, out-of-stream video and high impact native ad formats.

The development of this new technology adheres to new principles put forward in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) new LEAN initiative. LEAN refers to advertisements that are “light, encrypted, ad choice supported and non-invasive.”

According to Vibrant, the smaller ad formats will cut down on ad-blocking software downloads. “If other players in the industry start to act on the IAB’s LEAN initiative, we would expect to see a reduction in the rate of people downloading ad blockers,” Craig Gooding, founder and executive chairman of Vibrant Media, told Real-Time Daily via email.

An IAB UK study noted that 54% of people who use ad blockers do so because ads slow down their browsing experience.

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“When you’re hitting ad weights of around 30KB, the impact of digital advertising on the download of web pages is unnoticeable,” added Gooding. “Advertising needs to fit seamlessly into the consumer’s browsing experience - not just by being native, relevant and entertaining -- but also technically.”

Getting below 30.5KB “will be a huge challenge,” according to Gooding. “However, we’d never say never. Technology is amazing.” Importantly, according to Vibrant, the reduction in ad weight does not affect the quality of the creative.