Author: Kyra Steegs, Senior Director Video, Improve Digital
Contributor: Shivara ten Berge, Product Consultant TV Inventory & Data Trading, MediaKind
For years, full programmatic TV has seemed like an elusive dream in the digital ad industry. We’ve all been waiting for the moment when it will be possible to marry the reach and content that broadcast once had with the targeted, real-time, personalised ad experience that user-based data can offer. Now for the first time in the ecosystem, we’re seeing the emergence of a bright, new reality. Partnerships are arising in the digital ad world that will soon deliver mature programmatic TV revenue streams for advertisers, broadcasters and distributors alike.
The programmatic TV pipeline has been set in motion
For a long time, benefiting from user-driven TV ad revenue has been a distant glint in the eyes of the entire advertising ecosystem. But legacy practices were keeping all parties in a holding pattern. Broadcasters had no access to individual user-data; telecom providers had that data, but no way to leverage it because the tech was not there to guarantee brand safety; and advertisers needing that brand safety long accepted day-part targeting as “just how we do things in TV land”.
Now, with the coming of dynamic ad insertion, telecom providers can start offering the application of audience-based user data to the kind of premium, brand safe TV environments brands crave. Full programmatic TV isn’t here yet, but there’s a lot we can do already to start providing an effective end-to-end solution for automated TV ad trading.
You don’t have to own the entire data chain
Because data drives programmatic targeting, the main stumbling block to creating it was gaining smooth, unrestricted access to that data when almost no party owns the entire data chain. Now, you don’t have to be part of the digital duopoly to access a data chain.
Here, workable access to telecom provider set-top box household data has been key. Before dynamic ad insertion (DAI), there was no way to cut and match pieces of creative effectively to who’s watching. Legacy practices meant that ads were predefined within programmes and the first cases of dynamic ad replacement were clumsy and limiting. However, by cultivating the audience insights owned by telecoms and exposing this within the flexible machine-smart architecture that DAI offers, we are able to run dynamically placed ads of much higher relevance for viewers than were ever possible with legacy TV.
Cross-device and cross-service plug-and-play pipelines
That’s one piece of the puzzle, but you still need a delivery pipeline to viewers. Since telecom providers can deliver across TV services – Linear, VOD, DVR, Catch-up – on any device, that piece is now also in place. In terms of targeting capabilities, we are moving towards data enrichment. That means that, in a digital TV environment, where cookies don’t apply, we’re moving from contextual meta-data targeting (which is arguably similar to legacy demographic targeting) to anonymized data segments of 100 households. These segments, apart from gender, age and location, include viewing behaviour garnered from set-top boxes. This is addressable TV and it’s the next step towards individual targeting, otherwise known as full programmatic TV.
Partnerships are gearing up
As a result, we’re seeing the emergence of workable partnerships between telecom providers and broadcasters that plug into a data chain with effective targeting capabilities. With telecoms having the content delivery capabilities that track and serve to viewers on one hand, and broadcasters having the premium content that viewers tune in for on the other, it’s only natural that the two come together – with tech protocols and programmatic tech providers there to bind their collaboration.
In the Netherlands, we’re seeing a new ad delivery system being dreamed up by incumbent telecom provider KPN and network Talpa. In the UK, there’s the partnering of Sky and AdSmart. For our part as an ad tech provider, we’ve joined forces with content delivery platform MediaKind, formerly known as Ericsson TV, to offer broadcasters, telecom providers and advertisers a ready-made pipeline to the kind of data, ad trading and delivery capabilities that open up rich revenue opportunities.
Is this full programmatic?
We’re not at full throttle yet. There are still some technical hurdles to overcome, such as defining a suitable, universal technique to replace client-side cookie IDs (which are currently needed for features such as Frequency Capping), but with industry forces marching in step, it’s only a matter of time before all the pieces are aligned. For now, there’s already a lot we can do for broadcasters, advertisers and telecom companies to start taking advantage of the revenue benefits of a ready-made TV ad revenue pipeline.
On September 25th, we held a 2.5-hour long webinar providing a Complete Overview of the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework. As is usually the case, we had many interested attendees who were keen on learning more. While we usually do our best to make these as interactive as possible, we were simply overwhelmed with questions and had to skip over quite a few to be able to remain on schedule. For this reason, we have decided to answer the questions in a series of blogs. This is the fourth and penultimate blog in the series, dealing with questions about the policies of the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework.
The IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework’s policies do allow for the gaining of support across multiple publishers, which is called ‘global consent’ in the policies of the Framework. Server-specific (meaning for a particular site) disclosures and consent take priority over global consent. If a user makes a global consent choice first, and then later makes a service-specific choice, the service-specific choice will determine a user’s consent status for that service.
This means that for the second question, the consent that hasn’t been given on the other publisher’s site would take precedence over the first publisher’s site, because it is both more recent and more specific. The Consent Management Provider (CMP) has a duty to resolve any conflicts of this kind.
We believe that in order for processing of personal data to be lawful, the user must know who is processing their data and for what purpose.
Putting this information only in a privacy policy that the user is not directed to in the first instance runs the risk of not being considered a proper disclosure by data protection authorities. It would be more appropriate to surface this information in a CMP interface.
The GDPR provides for six co-equal legal bases which are enumerated in Article 6(1). The six legal bases are, in order:
The IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework allows users to express their consent, or lack thereof, granularly to (a) the setting of cookies under the rules of the ePrivacy Directive; (b) the processing of their personal data for each of the purposes standardized by the framework; by (c) specific Vendors setting cookies and/or processing personal data. It is therefore significantly more granular than an “all or nothing” approach. defined purposes
The current five data processing purposes are fully defined in the Transparency & Consent Framework Policies, and expanded on in the FAQs document. The descriptions used represent the standardized interpretation of the current processing purposes. These five purposes were defined by IAB Europe in conjunction with our members as part of the launch of the Framework.
As part of a large update to the Transparency & Consent Framework, we are working with our industry partners to define more granular and ‘user-friendly’ purposes.
It is complicated to define where to ‘set the bar’ on gathering of consent, due to different approaches by different data protection authorities in Europe. While the GDPR is clear in what it requires for valid consent (an affirmative action, freely given, specific, and informed), there is still room for interpretation by data protection authorities on what each of these factors requires. An affirmative action may in some markets constitute scrolling down after being served a consent notice, whereas others require an obvious yes/no choice to be presented. Authorities may also have different interpretations of when consent is considered freely given, and what level of granularity is considered specific enough.
Due to these differences, the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework leaves freedom for publishers and their CMPs to interpret how best to adapt their interface to their relevant market(s). In terms of specificity of purposes, the Framework draws a very clear baseline of requiring proper disclosure of the relevant defined purposes.
In future, it is foreseeable that a more precise legal understanding will be developed through interpretations from judicial bodies. An EU-wide understanding is only likely to arise from a judgment at the Court of Justice of the European Union. If a clear standard is developed, then the Framework will be adapted if necessary to uphold this.
Native advertising spend is expected to reach $85.5 billion by 2020, double the current level. Indeed, the growth of digital advertising as a whole has doubled in size over the past 5 years according to IAB Europe’s AdEx Benchmark 2017 Report. This incredible rise is in part due formats being available programmatically.
This new IAB Europe white paper provides insight into the status of programmatic native advertising in Europe and delivers guidance on key strategic and implementation considerations. It explores the challenges that advertisers, agencies and publishers are facing and how transparency and control are just as important for native buyers and sellers as they are for any other format traded programmatically.
IAB Europe would like to thank the white paper leader that helped to edit and compile the final draft:
And the white paper contributors that provided content for this white paper:
Register and download the white paper below:
In this blog series, IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Committee and its members explore key perspectives and the latest developments in the drive for a viewable, quality digital advertising environment.
Stevan Randjelovic - Brand Safety Manager, GroupM EMEA
Press headlines about inappropriate brand adjacencies, fraud cases and low viewability levels that have been gracing cover pages of global and local media, for more than a year now, are successfully shining new light on why investing in quality media is important. But what is quality media anyway?
At GroupM, we believe quality digital advertising is viewable by a real human who is in our target audience, served in an appropriate editorial environment and underpinned by independent industry certification and third-party verification, while being mindful of user-experience and privacy.
Why quality over quantity?
There are 3 distinct reasons.
By investing in quality media, you are much more likely to mitigate financial risk as you will actually pay for an ad that is viewable by a human who could engage with your products and services GroupM UK and Newsworks conducted a study which covered 84 campaigns, over 398 million impressions and 28,549 filtered survey responses. The study compared impression performance in premium media - defined as a website where consumers have a deeper relationship or affinity with the brand, for example news brand publishers or sports websites - and open exchange media.
The study proved that exposure on premium media is 58% more likely to be 100% in view for at least five seconds, than across open exchange media. Conversely, the study found that 48% of measurable ads on the open exchange were never actually seen.
Premium media also has carefully built or curated content which attracts audiences and readers who trust the publisher. By working with publishers who allow for 3rd party verification to curate appropriate brand adjacencies, advertisers can address reputational risk which threatens to erode advertiser’s brand. Let us not forget that reputation is probably the most valued asset of any brand.
According to the aforementioned GroupM UK and Newsworks’ research, ads in quality digital environments are 98% more likely to be placed fully above the fold, and 273% more likely to prompt a hover from a user. Premium placements also produced stronger response rates across the board with average uplifts of +10.5% for brand awareness, +19.2% for ad recall, +9.7% for brand perception and +10.3% for recommendation intent, therefore driving better return on advertising spend and performance against marketing objectives.
As the industry fully embraces the ‘quality-first’ approach and moves towards investing in fraud-free, highly viewable and contextually brand safe environments, what is considered to be ‘premium’ now will become the new normal. The differentiating factor will be the quality of audience and their willingness to share their personal data with publishers and their partners. While this is an important aspect of quality media today, in the post-GDPR world and as time passes by, it will become even more crucial for ad effectiveness as it will further allow targeting of appropriate ads to interested and receptive consumers in a non-intrusive manner.
Finally, we are encouraged by the action the industry is undertaking through individual projects or industry bodies such as IAB Europe. This is even more important as we all know too well that a problem cannot be solved without full participation of all stakeholders. GroupM will continue to promote the importance of quality.
The European Authority (the operating division of the European Viewability Initiative, resourced by IAB Europe and EACA) recently published a press release announcing the appointment of three independent media auditing organisations to undertake annual technical measurement audits of any company providing viewability measurement services across Europe. The appointment of the three auditors facilitates delivery of the framework's remit to establish a consistent Viewability solution across Europe and to minimise measurement discrepancies.
As a next step we would like to invite publishers to join a webinar in which we will provide an update and discuss the implications and benefits for publishers. You will have the opportunity to ask questions.
The speakers will be:
The webinar will take place on Monday 10 December at 15.00 CET / 14.00 GMT.
Digital video advertising is experiencing strong growth; spend in digital video advertising grew by more than 30% and programmatic video by more than 60% in 2017. IAB Europe aims to gather insight into what is driving this growth including adoption, strategies and attitudes in its latest survey.
Therefore, IAB Europe invites the industry to share their thoughts on digital video advertising in this survey to elevate understanding and identify areas for guidance to help with strategy development.
The survey will take no longer than 10 minutes and will close on Friday 25 January. All participants will receive a copy of the results and identified industry priorities.
Please pass on the survey link to any relevant colleagues. Your response will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Please contact us if you have any comments or questions.
The 2017 Attitudes towards Digital Video Advertising report can be accessed here.
Thank you for helping us to create another important asset for the European digital industry!
This complimentary webinar showcased some of the winners of the MIXX Awards Europe 2018 which recognise and celebrate the year’s best digital advertising campaigns in Europe.
The winning campaigns presented were:
Programmatic Advertising - GOLD
Dry Shampoo
Dove
Initiative Russia
Campaign Effectiveness - GOLD
Dare to Play
Special Olympics Belgium
LDV United
Effective Use of Data - GOLD
Jazz Version of the City
Akbank
MediaCom
The speakers were:
Watch the recording and download the slides here.
The Virtual Programmatic Day H2 2018 brought together industry experts and thought-leaders to explore the latest trends, drivers and barriers impacting programmatic trading in Europe. The key topics covered include the size of the programmatic advertising market in Europe, the attitudes and strategies, transparency and the impact of GDPR on programmatic trading.
The agenda and speakers:
Watch the recording and explore the presentations HERE and HERE.
Links to reports and resources referenced in the Virtual Programmatic Day:
The BBC and Essence efficiently drove subscriptions for the FT using DoubleClick’s Programmatic Guaranteed with Audience Lists.
Watch the case-study here.
This case study was originally published here.
The first edition of the IAB Europe Human Capital in the Digital Environment Report highlights a series of findings which come to support the efforts of the industry to combat the skill gap and talent shortage currently affecting it. The report aims to identify the main challenges that both recruiters and candidates face when hiring or transitioning into digital marketing and communication, with a focus on training needs and potential future priorities for education on digital topics. Prevalent throughout the report is also a clear incongruity between the perceptions of employers and candidates, ranging from the skills needed in the industry, to the abilities possessed and the salaries expected.
In terms of the actual topics that HR specialist and trainers in companies have identified as most pressing for potential candidates or existing staff, programmatic and analytics lead the field – 56% and 54%, respectively. Also of note are topics related to video advertising (43%), campaign planning (39%), emerging technologies (37%), cross-media (36%), and content marketing (35%). Least interesting as training topics for the respondents are DOOH, Digital Audio, and email marketing – 11.81%, 14.17%, and 14.96%, respectively.
As far as training budgets are concerned, both employers and employees are willing to invest in digital training in the coming years. 43% of employers taking part in this study expect their training budgets for staff to increase next year. 85% of candidates are willing to invest in themselves to bring their skills and abilities required by a career in digital up to speed.
Through the Education and Training Committee as well as all its other committees, work groups and task forces, IAB Europe will continue to take steps to support the training efforts of its members and industry as a whole in the pursuit of adequately prepared current and future generations of digital talent.
Brussels, 21 November 2018 – IAB Europe has today published the inaugural edition of the Human Capital in the Digital Environment Report highlighting a series of findings which come to support the efforts of the industry to combat the skill gap and talent shortage currently affecting it.
The report drafted under the Education and Training Committee with support from the Research Committee, aims to identify the main challenges that both recruiters and candidates face when hiring or transitioning into digital marketing and communication, with a focus on the training needs and potential future priorities for education on digital topics. Prevalent throughout the report is also a clear incongruity between the perceptions of employers and candidates, ranging from the skills needed in the industry, to the abilities possessed and the salaries expected.
In terms of the actual topics that HR specialist and trainers in companies have identified as most pressing for potential candidates or existing staff, programmatic and analytics lead the field – 56% and 54%, respectively. Also of note are topics related to video advertising (43%), campaign planning (39%), emerging technologies (37%), cross-media (36%), and content marketing (35%). Least interesting as training topics for the respondents are DOOH, Digital Audio, and email marketing – 11.81%, 14.17%, and 14.96%, respectively.
Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe said, “The Human Capital in the Digital Environment 2018 Report is a solid first step towards building a valuable resource for the industry which will help identify areas of focus for the years ahead and priority challenges that need to be overcome in the bid to offset the skill gap in digital advertising.”
Another key area of concern identified by the report is the education system, which in many cases is not tailored to the digital age and fails to prepare young talent for the rigors and demands of the digital advertising industry, with some respondents marking this as one of the causes for the shortage of digital talent in the industry.
Neslihan Olcay, Chair of the IAB Europe Education & Training Committee and CEO of Wavemaker Turkey, commented: “The results of the survey show there is an acute shortage of skilled talents in the market, which is attributed by the respondents mainly to the education system that does not prepare students for the digital industry in the digital age. We hope the findings of this survey would inspire the development of new and future-proof educational programmes by the formal education institutions as well as by the corporations in our industry.”
One of the main discrepancies arises when candidates are invited to self-assess. Asked to rate their abilities in digital on a scale of 1 to 10, the average score of all respondents was on the high end of the scale - over 7. This, in an environment in which employers consistently indicate the inability of candidates to accurately evaluate their skills for the job they are applying to as one of the top hurdles in recruiting valuable talent.
There is hope, however, as both employers and employees are willing to invest in digital training in the coming years. 43% of employers taking part in this study expect their training budgets for staff to increase next year. 85% of candidates are willing to invest in themselves to bring their skills and abilities required by a career in digital up to speed.
Ewa Opach, Education and Certification Director, IAB Poland, stated: “The e-marketing industry has tremendous educational needs and is subject to the most dynamic changes, requiring constant updating of qualifications in order to preserve relevance. Candidates overestimate self-assessment of qualifications, which leads to overstated and unrealistic financial expectations. But there is a silver lining: both employers and employees are willing, at least declaratively, to amend the situation.”
Through the Education and Training Committee as well as all its other committees, work groups and task forces, IAB Europe will continue to take steps to support the training efforts of its members and industry as a whole in the pursuit of adequately prepared current and future generations of digital talent.
About IAB Europe
IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.
Abbie Clement, Head of Content, iubenda
In this article, Abbie Clement, Head of Content at iubenda, takes a look at the findings of the recently published Human Capital in the Digital Environment report and touches upon an issue that might not immediately come to mind when considering the root causes of the digital talent shortage: communication.
The European digital advertising market has doubled in size in 5 years, with digital being the largest advertising medium in Europe and ad spend totaling over 48Bn in the last year. However, despite major investment and visibility, IAB Europe's recent Report on Human Capital in the Digital Environment indicates that the industry is suffering a shortage of skilled human resources and faced with a difficult recruitment process.
The major contributing factors being (according to respondents of the survey) that the lack of technically skilled applicants, abundance of underqualified specialists and the inability of candidates to properly self-assess lead to an imbalance between demand and availability of appropriately skilled candidates. This, in turn, leads to inflated salary expectations of applicants, even where they are underskilled.
Simply put, the current pool of candidates, by and large, are not providing what employers in the industry need. Another issue indicated by the report that's worth noting here is a lack of investment in ongoing training and skill development of active staff.
Now, if we take a step back and look at the issue, it becomes apparent that there is, in fact, one core problem — communication. Odd, considering that the industry is built around the principle of not just communicating, but communicating effectively. In fact, it almost seems counterintuitive that a lack of communication would be at the root of internal issues. Whether this is due to a historically competitive nature of the industry, a consequence of rapid and exponential growth in the digital age or something else remains up for debate, but the fact remains that a lack of effective communication across occupational lines within the industry provides for an environment where candidates are unclear on what skills are truly required and how to measure those skills, and employers are tasked with valuing said skills in relation to what's available rather than what's actually needed.
Effective communication, of course, can be achieved in various ways, however, it is my opinion that the method most conducive to solving the current issues would be to create a unified voice by standardizing qualifications.
One way to do this would be to implement a standard training and certification programme.
Such a programme would allow employers and the industry at large to communicate clearly what is actually required in no uncertain terms. One advantage here is that while certification may set a base standard for technical requirements, it still leaves room for employers to factor in relevant soft-skills and personality traits when making a hiring decision. This is particularly relevant as a major issue highlighted in the recent report is the fact that candidates rated soft-skills such as patience and organizational abilities above technical skills — distinctly misaligned with employer expectations, which placed technical skills as most important with soft skills coming in second.
Another benefit of this approach is that standardizing base qualifications raises the overall quality of the recruitment pool. Though such an approach may appear to reduce the size of an already limited pool, the principles of basic targeting apply here in that the candidates that make the effort to meet requirements can be assumed to be truly interested in the role and technically knowledgeable, which should, in turn, result in a more efficient recruitment process and less time and resources wasted. Specialization also becomes easier to recruit for as it can be more clearly defined.
Lastly, the standardization of qualifications would also assist employers in fairly and appropriately valuing the roles that they're recruiting for. Candidates would have a realistic idea of what's required and the industry can set a base standard for what that is worth. This is additionally and particularly relevant in an industry as dynamic as digital advertising in that standard qualifications would also make it easier to evaluate current employee performance, identify where organizational output is lacking in relation to industry standards, and to better identify where follow-up training is needed.
One related point highlighted in the HCitDE Report is that, according to some recruiters surveyed, the wages in other sectors exceeded those that the digital industry could offer, resulting in fewer available qualified candidates. Standardizing addresses this issue in that a high-quality candidate pool is more likely to result in a positive return on investment for each resource acquired from that pool. This better empowers employers to offer remuneration packages that can more effectively compete with other industries.
Standardized certification (and the implied related vocational training) allow us to indicate expectations while providing the opportunity and means for interested candidates to meet them. This approach allows for more direct and effective communication between the industry and its human capital.
