Deutsche Telekom’s senior vice president of technology, strategy, governance, and programs Tomasz Gerszberg has gone where no telecom exec has gone before.
In an essay originally posted to LinkedIn but now cited by Business Insider, “referenced the growth in consumers using ad blocking software, plus the “arms race” waging between the ad blockers, and the new startup companies trying to help publishers and ad sellers circumvent them.”
Gerszberg’s solution? For advertising networks and exchanges to pay mobile carriers, who will then use that money subsidise their customers’ mobile tariffs.
“Gerszberg says this kind of war could be “easily avoided” on mobile, where “annoying” ads are eating into consumers’ data plans, which may well be one of the reasons why they consider downloading ad blockers.”
How would it work?
“Let’s imagine that a user doesn’t pay for ads out of its own pocket,” goes the thinking. “Advertising will be zero rated by operators who will be paid by ad exchange networks for ad delivery. This model will deliver sustainable growth to the whole industry. It will reduce ad spam, so it will increase conversion rate – as it was proven by AdBlock+. It will eliminate the reasons for users’ ad blocking, so the publishers will enjoy increasing revenues in the growing mobile segment. It will also give operators the opportunity to be a part of the value chain and enrich it with their own Big Data capabilities.”
Whew.
Maybe “them’s fightin’ words” … but time will tell.
In the meantime, Deutsche Telekom, which has more than 150 million subscribers worldwide, has made it known that the post was written by Gerszberg in a personal capacity, and that it currently has “no fixed plans to introduce such an option.”
