“Not only did the audience who actively chose to say no to all ads click on the banner. They did so in a frequency three times higher than the regular audience who still says yes to ads,” a statement from the agency said.

From a technical perspective, the UNICEF ad was still visible to ad-blocking users because it was hard-coded into the Dagens Nyheter site itself, therefore avoiding the use of ad tags, tracking scripts and other elements ad blockers typically identify.

“What we think is most interesting is this comes to prove if you have relevant messages with the right context then people are interested in hearing what you have to say,” Mr. Carlberg said.