Jon O'Donnell from ESI Media's presentation from Digiday's WTF Ad Blocking event in London - March 10, 2016

1. Myths Busted
& Lessons Learned
Jon O’Donnell
Group Commercial Director
@wrathofjod

2. A Digital future for
The Independent

3. Monthly Reach
2.3m
293m*
*includes Facebook IA and Apple News

4. A Truly Global
Business
The Independent xxxxx
Newsbrands

5. The Independent
portfolio:
pure play
Newsbrands

6. US Campaign trail
£12,000 p/m

7. Patrick
Cockburn
£10,000
IRAQ
Kim
Sengupta
£8,500
IRAN
Robert
Fisk
£9,000
SYRIA

8. Ad Blocking is the
enemy of free speech

11. 1986 2003 2016
A bold
innovator

12. Key talent
retained
Simon
Calder
Alexander
Fury

13. New Bureau
South America,
Middle East and
Far East

14. Fastest growing
quality newspaper
website
3%3%
5%
13%
21%
Source: Comscore Jan 2016

15. The largest
pureplay news site
in the UK
1.2
2.72.9
8.5
13.6
16.9
BuzzFeed
Vice
NewsThump
Mashable
Quartz
Source: Comscore Jan 2016

16. iab Wave4 Feb 2016
ESI Google site catalyst
Independent
9.1%
UK
22%
Ad Blocking
% Penetration

17. Ad Blocking isn’t just
about blocking ads

18. The main reason
for ad blocking is
not just because
people hate ads
I feel blocking ads protects
me from getting viruses
I feel blocking ads speeds
up my computer
I just hate ads
The ads distract me
from what I'm doing
I feel blocking ads
gives me more privacy
Some sites have too many ads so I turn on
the ad blocker when I visit those sites
The sites I visit have too many ads
I don't trust ads and the
technology used to serve ads
The sites I visit have
visually unappealing ads
All of the above 18%
13%
27%
28%
30%
31%
40%
40%
42%
45%
Source: MarketingLand Jan 2016

24. “Most people
don’t want a
relationship
with a brand…”

25. Native gets us
round the problem

28. Results
95,000 page
views - more
than double the
expectation
The 2nd highest
performing
competition of 2015
43% opt in rate
(av. 30%)
3.31min
av. dwell time
(site av. 1 min)

29. Whitelisting

30. ?

33. Improving user
engagement

34. Personalised
Editorial
Better
targeted Ads
Improved
performance
Better creative
Better UXLogged In
Deeper
customer data
A better value
exchange

35. Text Text

36. “Without a paper to dictate
process, organisation, culture,
and economics, the Independent
will be free to be whatever it needs
to be to best serve its public… “
Jeff Jarvis,
journalist and author
of What Would
Google Do?

37. Thank you…
Jon O’Donnell
Group Commercial Director
@wrathofjod