I am willing to bet that companies have a reasonably good handle on the returns from their advertising spending.
I suspect they have no better than guesses as to why those returns change over time, or what might improve the returns. That brief "ad-blockers are immoral" campaign was probably the result of a few advertising committees deciding that some downward trend was caused by ad-blocking. This is more of the same.
The companies are never going to come out and say "we're not making good enough ads," they're going to blame the platforms they're advertising on. That will put pressure on the platforms to lower prices, and in this case, serve as a kind of corporate virtue signalling by pretending to be concerned about social issues.
Indeed, though I am worried that advertisers and platforms will take a long time to find equilibrium again (and minor players may be priced out of the market).
When the first ad exodus from YouTube happened, a lot of us thought that it would take them about 6 months to renegotiate and things would be back to normal. Well, it did not happen and we have only seen more exits since.
I suspect they have no better than guesses as to why those returns change over time, or what might improve the returns. That brief "ad-blockers are immoral" campaign was probably the result of a few advertising committees deciding that some downward trend was caused by ad-blocking. This is more of the same.
The companies are never going to come out and say "we're not making good enough ads," they're going to blame the platforms they're advertising on. That will put pressure on the platforms to lower prices, and in this case, serve as a kind of corporate virtue signalling by pretending to be concerned about social issues.