advertising

With gaming on consoles, PCs, and even mobile becoming an even more lucrative industry, it's really no surprise that brands see it as the next fertile land for advertising revenue. Some might have even come to accept that as a sad fact of life, just like web ads, especially on free to play titles. But when you're paying dozens of dollars, the last thing you want is to be interrupted by an ad you can't escape from. That's the surprising situation NBA 2K21 players found themselves in and, according to the game's publisher, it was simply an honest error.

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NBA 2K21 is coming under fire today for playing unskippable ads that players have to watch during loading screens. Ads in games are nothing new, but generally we only see them in free-to-play mobile titles. The difference, of course, is that NBA 2K21 is a game that costs $60 upfront, and even more if you want to get a next-gen upgrade, which means that people probably aren't going to be too fond of these ads.

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It just launched new products and services today but next week might have a different atmosphere over at Google HQ. Although it has long been accused of anti-competitive practices in many countries around the world, Google has yet to face a formal lawsuit that could truly shake and shape its search and advertising business for the future. That lawsuit might finally come next if the US Department of Justice pushes through with its alleged schedule. The bigger question, however, is whether state attorneys general will be onboard with it.

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Just as browser makers and laws start to crack down on the abuse and misuse of ads, one major US network operator might be daring to stir up the hornet's nest in about a year's time. AT&T CEO John Stankey revealed the company's thoughts on how it could offer cheaper mobile subscriptions and, as you might expect, it involves serving customers targeted ads.

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Advertisements have been around since the earliest days of mass media and they have reviled just as long. While some ads can be tasteful, ingenious, and even entertaining, most are just "in your face" attempts to grab consumers' attention. While those have more or less been accepted facts of life in some media, like print and the Web, other channels actually have ways to make consumers' voices be heard, something that EA Games learned the hard way in its latest attempt to put full-on commercials in the middle of a video game.

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Fried chicken and southern American food joint KFC has announced plans to temporarily suspend the use of its company slogan during the pandemic. The reason is quite obvious if you're familiar with the slogan -- "It's Finger Lickin' Good" is an awkward thing to say at a time when you're supposed to avoid touching your face, not to mention the risk of licking your hands. The advertising change went live around the globe today.

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Google is cracking down on technology advertised for spying on other people, including intimate partner surveillance systems. The ban will go into effect next month when Google updates its policies, prohibiting advertisers from promoting any services or products that are intended for monitoring another person. There will be, however, some important exceptions to this rule.

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Facebook has announced that users in the United States, including those on Instagram, can now opt out of seeing certain types of advertisements on the social media platforms, including ones related to politics. Users may still see some of these types of ads even if they opt out, but Facebook is giving users the ability to tag advertisements that made it past the filters.

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YouTube video creators will soon need to opt-out of mid-roll advertisements in videos that are 8 minutes or longer. Today, only 10 minute videos (or longer) are eligible for mid-roll ads. By the end of July, 2020, YouTube videos with content that's 8 minutes or longer will have mid-roll ads by default. This goes for all the videos that've been up on YouTube for years, and years - they'll have mid-roll ads too, unless their creators opt-out manually.

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Sony's PlayStation is the latest major company to ditch Facebook and Instagram, at least temporarily. The company has joined an ongoing boycott that will involve suspending advertisements on the platform during the month of July. In this case, PlayStation has confirmed that it will suspend all of its activity on both social media websites, including sharing non-paid content.

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The Coca-Cola Company has made the decision to 'pause' all of its social media advertising, one of the biggest moves in the growing boycott movement. The decision to pause advertising is joined by similar announcements from other big companies, including Verizon, Mozilla, Honda, Viber, Hersey, and more. "There is no place for racism in the world and there is no place for racism on social media," Coca-Cola Company Chairman and CEO James Quincey said in a statement.

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Ads are the bane of many people's Internet lives but they are also the lifeblood of many companies. Striking a balance between those two parties without resorting to shenanigans and illegal practices has become an almost never-ending quest for the likes of Google. From third-party browser extensions to premium subscriptions, there have been different methods of removing ads on web pages and videos. The simplest, it turns out, is to just add a single dot after the ".com" of a YouTube URL.

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