IAB

Adblocking -please advertise responsibly

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Ad-blocking, is now in its next chapter. The converted network in the form of Three is going to banish ads en masse. We have lived through a number of chapters in this story, we are reading fast because it is such a page-turner and on a panel a week or so ago I was asked a number of good questions.

The first was why had we taken so long to wake up to the issue when ad-blockers had been around for some time. The second was “what are we actually going to do about it?” and finally a question about what advertisers think. The questions raised some good points because right now the whole industry is standing around admiring the problem with little visible action.

Let’s start with the advertisers, why are they not up in arms on this topic? Well the answer is that it has not affected them, as far as they can see. They ask for media and they get media, often at a lower price than last year so everything is rosy. The mobile network Three’s partnership with the ad-blocker Shine might start a trend that means the only feasible answer is restricting inventory and increasing pricing. Advertisers will then find the cost of their digital ads goes up. When you see that six months after bringing in new rules on its exchange Appnexus has reduced traffic by 90 per cent, you start to see the potential impact if you clean up ad fraud and restrict eyeballs.

I believe we did not notice the problem until other businesses started to make money out of the problem. Not unlike the earliest protection racket that started up around the olive groves of Sicily, once it was clear that there was money to be paid the topic was widely distributed by the aforementioned racketeers, sorry ad-blocking companies. Since then, ad-blocking has seeped into the common consciousness appearing in articles, films and more. In fact as Caspar Schlickum of Xaxis said, we basically brought it upon ourselves by talking about it so much.

We are now admiring the problem from every angle like a fine work of art. Yet this is an industry issue like no other we have had before. This is an issue to end the industry and we need to create a collective approach to the problem. We have to do something on the scale of the alcohol industry. “Please drink responsibly” needs to change to “please advertise responsibly”. We need to get behind a body of people capable of creating change.

image: http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/news/OMC/richedit/DrinkResponsibility.jpg

Advertising needs its own version of the ‘drink responsibly’ industry effort

The question is who is going to put their hand up? The Internet Advertising Bureau, IPA, and Advertising Association have to come together to start the ball rolling. Some of that should be official sounding work and some more basic. The easiest example is to all collectively agree to not build certain ads.

The IAB with its “lean” approach is starting with that, but we should all get behind it. There was a time in 2002/3 when pop-ups were banished to whence they came. They were not cool, the sole preserve of gambling and porn companies. In the last few years they have made a return in a big way, but disguised as something more sophisticated. We have to cut them out. None of this is pretty and we have to get on the front foot.

And as a parting remark, I would say it is not helpful that other parts of the business are rubbing their hands together on this topic. Whether it be people working in other media channels like TV who think that people actually like TV ads, when actually they have no choice really, give them an app to dodge TV ads and they will, or creative agencies blaming programmatic. We all have a part to play and it threatens all of us.

One thing we could all do is not allow ad-blocking companies into conferences as the IAB did in the US because the lights that beam on the stage, the food they happily eat in the break, the drinks they consume in the bar afterwards and everything in between is paid for by advertising. For that reason alone they should not be invited.
Read more at http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/ad-blocking-end-industry-why-no-one-stepping-change-that/1384789#7uGwk0Qmp1bklfyh.99

Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) – heard of it?

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I attended a seminar this morning called something like ‘Is your brand safe online’ A number of parties were there, all worried about their brands, namely trade bodies, Ad nets, Agencies and global digital media companies. The one group severely lacking was the advertisers! It is notoriously difficult to get clients to turn up to events and this was obviously not an event that they thought important. Why would they? Don’t they have their agencies to do this stuff?

It is a similar story with ePrivacy, although almost all the onus falls on the advertiser to make sure their site is compliant and that their advertising is as compliant as one can be in this area, there has been limited discussion on the topics since ‘the date’ came and went. How come? Maybe everyone thought that someone else was worrying about it?

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The group is focused on getting self regulation principles about where Ads appear to be taken up by media vendors. They want to suffocate the advertising revenue streams for unsavoury or illegal sites by making sure that all the major suppliers of inventory agree not to use them.

So today’s agenda showed that again we have a topic that appears an important one and yet again we have the merry go round of whose responsibility it is to make sure we are compliant. Well today we heard it loud and clear, The Police and Fact think that it is the advertiser who has to take responsibility for making sure that their Ads do not appear on illegal or inappropriate content. We were given an example of the client EasyJet that the guy from Fact kept repeating has not been able to be reached. He was very annoyed by that..I asked if he had contacted their agency to be told that it was not his job to spend time looking for who Easyjet agency was – umm maybe ask your IPA friends? No it was better to keep sending letters to Easyjet when the agency would have had those Ads down in about 15secs.

So bearing in mind that the Police think the advertiser should take responsibility, the advertiser thinks the agency should, the agency thinks the Trading Desk should and the Trading Desk things the suppliers of inventory should we have a beautiful example of sequential liability (without all the legal jumbo jumbo!) – I took a decision. I decided that the suppliers of inventory should be taking responsibility for where my agencies, advertisers’ adverts are being placed and I wrote them all a nice letter asking them to abide by the Principles of the DTSG.

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I just did it. It was easy to do to be honest. I wrote to them and said ‘ please can you confirm that you won’t put Ads on porn sites, children sites, illegal sites (the special police list), Torrent sites and basically anything else unsavoury because our agency’s advertisers will not want it.’ And why was it easy? Because it is so bloody basic and common sense that I am trying to work out why everyone has not done it, apparently some are reticent at this stage to do it. Well for me I am all for it because it is straight forward and I don’t want another ePrivacy debacle involving 10 different bodies and loads of political bull. I just want to buy ads in nice places.

Our whole VivaKi Verified approach means we are already vetting, categorising, white listing inventory so this is a no brainer for me, I appeal to everyone else to get on with it as well. It will be one less committee meeting to go to and will mean everyone can get back to dealing with the nightmare that is ePrivacy, I would hate for another topic to come along and hijack every media conference panel debate!

After this cause is put to bed I am starting out on Ads appearing alongside prostitute cards in phone boxes – now who is responsible for making sure that does not happen?