We are pleased to announce the Jury members for the MIXX Awards Europe 2019, who will be judging the talented digital advertising campaigns that are entered into the MIXX Awards, before the extended deadline of Friday 22 March.

Anna Lubowska, an independent business consultant, supervisory boards member, will Chair the Jury and will be joined by Anna Gruszka, Chief Digital Officer at IPG Mediabrands; Stephanie Matthews, Campaign Manager for Virgin; Daniel Bischoff, Chief Marketing & Operations Officer at RTL; Ash Grant, Head of Biddable Media at Experian and Peter Drake, Executive Creative Director at Digitas. The profiles of the jury members can be found below.

The MIXX Awards Europe are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your European campaigns and to educate the marketplace about what works and why in digital marketing, as well as inspire the industry by highlighting new ideas and future trends.

To enter the MIXX Awards Europe 2019, please click here.

Jury Member Profiles

Chair of the Jury: Anna Lubowska - Freelance Consultant

In 1992 entered the advertising world as a Media Director at BBDO. Next led the media department at JWT/Parintex. In 1998 became Managing Director of newly-formed The Media Edge, which, after the merger with CIA, went on to become Mediaedge:cia and MEC. Under her management, MEC Poland racketed up the rankings and significantly expanded its offer. In 2006 promoted to Chief Executive Officer, Central Eastern Europe and 4 years later to Chairman, CEE, Russia and CIS. In 2018 hold the position of CEO of GroupM Poland, the largest media investment group controlling nearly 40 perc. share in the market.

Since the beginning of 2019 Anna works as a freelance consultant.

Apart from her business duties she has always been active in the initiatives serving the whole advertising community i.e. in the role of the President of the Board of SAR Marketing Communication Association between 2009 – 2011 and as a jury member at various contests including Effie, Cannes, Media Trendy, Golden Hammer, Golden Drums, Cristal Awards and European MIXX Awards.

In  Media and Marketing January edition Anna was praised as one of 25 legends of Polish media, marketing and advertising industry .

Anna Gruszka - Chief Digital Officer of IPG Mediabrands, CEO of Reprise

Anna is responsible for managing the team of experts, developing digital structures and expanding the holding portfolio as a Chief Digital Officer of IPG Mediabrands Poland, CEO of the interactive agency Reprise, member of the management board of Universal McCann and MAGNA Poland and Supervisory Board of IAB Poland. Formerly Managing & Strategy Director of Codemedia and Digital Manager at HAVAS, where in 2008 she was responsible for the opening and training of digital agencies in CEE. For several years she has been persuading to skilfully use interactive media related to changing consumer habits. In January 2019 she was chosen as one of the Top Thinkers by Screenlovers service.

A graduate of the Warsaw University and Polish Academy of Sciences with a certificate of creating social expertises. With commitment educates the marketing industry as a speaker among others: IAB Forum, Mobile Trends, VideoWars, Internet Standard and Congress of Online Marketing. Anna was a president of the jury in Young Cannes Lions, MIXX Awards and Golden Arrow. She walks fast, speaks fast and makes decisions quickly.

Stephanie Matthews - Campaign Manager for Virgin

As Campaign Manager for Virgin, Stephanie brings the global masterbrand strategy to life through channel and brand activations. A strong masterbrand underpins the commercial success of the 60+ Virgin companies in the portfolio. Prior to this she was at ITV as Commercial Audiences Manager, supporting the broadcast and digital teams with advertiser insights, around shows including Love Island and Corrie. Here she led the award winning ITV Second Screen, an insight piece uncovering the motivations and commercial benefits behind companion programme app and TV viewing behaviours.

Her career has spanned both marketing communications and research within the UK and Australia, for a variety of industries including media at Channel 4 and News Corp, and travel, insurance and finance at the RAC.

Stephanie supports equality for all in the workplace, and is an active member of a number of industry organisations including President at women’s network Bloom UK, Stonewall’s School Role Model programme and the Media Trust mentoring programme. She’s a recent 2018 winner of WACL’s Future Leader Award.

Daniel Bischoff - Chief Marketing & Operations Officer at RTL

As Chief Marketing & Operations Officer, Daniel Bischoff oversees all relevant marketing and operations functions at RTL AdConnect, including strategy development, cross country total video research as well as pan-European digital and TV planning & implementation, development of scalable inventory products,  and identification of new business and all sales support. Prior to joining RTL AdConnect in 2016, Daniel was head of strategic Marketing at IP Deutschland after joining from a 4,5 year stay at MediaCom Germany where he held various positions, including Managing Partner.

Daniel Bischoff is 38 years old, married with three children. He studied Theater, Film and Media Sciences as well as Philosophy in Frankfurt, Brussels and Berlin.

Peter Drake - Executive Creative Director of Digitas UK

Peter Drake is the Executive Creative Director of Digitas UK, leading Connected Communications for the agency, developing powerful and award-winning work for clients such as Kellogg’s, Honda and American Express.

Peter is also an expert in content and branding which stems from his previous BAFTA winning experience in broadcasting and content creation.

Peter is a relentless explorer of finding new ways to bring brands to life – his unique perspective combines exploring new tech and digital innovations with the craft of timeless storytelling,

Peter is regular judge for BAFTA Film, TV and Games awards, as well as Campaign Big Awards and the IAB MIXX Awards.

Ash Grant - Head of Biddable Media at Experian

Ash Grant is a programmatic media specialist, currently leading biddable at Experian marketing services.

Before joining Experian, Ash spent 8 years working within digital marketing and activation roles across the financial services sector, ranging from industry leading spreadbetting and investment services provider IG to retail banking at HSBC UK.

In his spare time, Ash enjoys art, travelling and is currently training for his first powerlifting competition.

Christina Keller - Director of Creative Shop, Central Europe at Facebook

Christina Keller leads the ‚Creative Shop’ for Facebook and Instagram across the Central European Region. Together with a team of art directors, copywriters and planners, she supports agencies and clients to come up with innovative and efficient mobile first ideas.

Christina studied Marketing Communication at the University of Arts in Berlin. She started her career at McCann Erickson - hoping to become a fabulous copywriter. Over time she discovered that her real vocation lies in strategic planning. She is passionate about digging for data and human insights and about translating this into inspiring campaigns, that really matter to people.

She worked as a strategic planner for Jung von Matt, TBWA, DDB over many years before changing on client side and initiating the employer branding campaign for Deutsche Bahn in 2012. She works for Facebook since August 2015 - and loves paper books, traveling, spending time with her Algerian godchild.

IAB Europe is looking for entries from talented and hard-working teams that have created some of the best digital advertising campaigns that are deserving of the European-recognised awards for its MIXX Awards Europe competition.

All winners will be announced at IAB Europe’s flagship conference, Interact 2019. Over 600 Industry leaders from across Europe’s digital advertising ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers, agencies to technology companies, are expected to attend the Interact 2019 event. This year the event is being held on 4-5 June in Warsaw, Poland. Tickets are now open for registration here.

We are pleased to announce the Jury members for the IAB Europe Research Awards 2019, who will be judging the winning digital research projects that are entered into the Research Awards, before the extended deadline of Friday 22 March.

Rene Lamsfuss, Chief Research Officer at Publicis Media Germany will Chair the Jury and he will be joined by Pawel Kolenda, Research Director at IAB Poland and Vice-Chair, IAB Europe Research Committee; Louise Twycross-Lewis, Head of Quant Research at Wavemaker, Anita Caras, Research Director at Verizon Media and Scott Joslin, SVP - Data Strategy at Turner. The profiles of the Jury members can be found below.

The IAB Europe Research Awards are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your digital research projects and to show the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry.

To Enter the IAB Europe Research Awards, please click here.

Jury Member Profiles

Chair of the Jury: Rene Lamsfuss - Chief Analytics Officer of Publicis Media DACH

Rene is Chief Analytics Officer of Publicis Media DACH and Analytics & Research Lead for EMEA with close to 20 years of experience in advanced analytics, market & media research, data governance and data strategy.

Rene is leading within Publicis Media DACH the Media Analytics & Insights, Data Strategy and Advanced Analytics team since 2014 and is also responsible for Analytics & Research within EMEA. He has a data and analytics DNA, focusing on deep understanding of consumer behavior and their customer journey, the ROI of media investments as well as supporting the activation by personalisation@scale. Rene is the patron of the AI Masters Conference, one of the important conferences with regards to artificial intelligence in Germany.

Before he joined Publicis Media, Rene worked for Lycos, United Internet, NFO Infratest and Nielsen. At Nielsen he worked close to 7 years, leading Digital Product and Methodology within EMEA and later on responsible for Market Governance and Data Strategy in Europe. Within this role he was working for Nielsen in Brussels and supported European Commission, European Parliament, AMCHAM EU, ESOMAR and IAB Europe with data and insights into the media and research activities as well as with regards to data and market governance.

He is member of the Brand Advertising Committee within the IAB Europe, board member of the German Online Joint Industry Committee AGOF, member of the FOMA board (online media agency organization) and an active member of ESOMAR (world market research organisation).

Pawel Kolenda - Research Director of IAB Poland, Vice-Chair of the IAB Europe Research Committee

Pawel provides research solutions and marketing tools for the digital communication industry. His areas of expertise are ad spend, ad effectiveness and consumer behaviours. He is the leader of the Research Working Group and non-corporate leader of the IAB/PwC AdEx Task Force at IAB Poland, Vice-Chair of the Research Committee at IAB Europe, author of several publications and speaker at many conferences covering the online industry. Philosopher. He started his market research career over 20 years ago. His major area of interest is quantitative research. He has worked on more than 500 projects, mostly in Telecom, Finance, Media and FMCG sectors.

The above mentioned include consulting, forecasting, insights and recommendations on brand launch and re-launch, crisis brand management and others. He worked for BASES Nielsen, MillwardBrown and local agencies. He entered into the online industry in 2008 joining team in research platform start-up with Grupa IQS research agency and Higher School of Social Psychology (SWPS). In 2010 he started working for IAB Poland.

Louise Twycross-Lewis - Head of Quant Research at Wavemaker

Louise has over 19 years’ experience in media research, having held positions at Granada, Mirror Group Newspapers, IPC Media, MEC and Wavemaker.

She has led key projects including award-winning work on IPC’s Origin Panel, MEC’s research on personalised product placement (Project Slipstream), and WM Momentum; Wavemaker’s proprietary framework for generating purchase journey insight.

As Head of Research of Wavemaker UK's Audience Science team, Louise works across a range of new business and client projects including research for Beiersdorf, the Metropolitan Police Service, National Counter Terrorism Policing, BMW/MINI, the RAF and Royal Navy.

In her current role, Louise is responsible for providing quantitative and qualitative research solutions and her team use and champion the use of digital, search, social and research data to generate insights to better understand consumers and their purchase decision-making. The Audience Science team recently won the Mediatel Media Agency Team of the Year Award.

Louise’s industry commitments include participation in Bloom, the IAB and the Media Research Group. She also heads up WM Roots which champions cultural and ethnic diversity at Wavemaker and within the wider industry.

Anita Caras - Insights Director at Verizon Media

Anita Caras is responsible for leading a team of high performing insight professionals across the Globe.  Under her direction, the team are responsible for delivering consumer insights and data assets that generate demand, support non-US revenue commitments and help build Verizon Media brand equity in the digital advertising space.

Passionate about brands and the possibilities that digital media offers, Anita is focused on driving understanding of digital media and the opportunities it creates via data driven dashboards and thought leadership pieces, which are distributed both internally and externally to agencies, advertisers and journalists Worldwide. She is also a strong advocate for inclusion and diversity in the media technology and marketing space; and is the company’s EMEA lead for the Womens Inclusion Network (WIN).

Anita’s 25 years of media research experience have been drawn from roles both media owner and agency side. Before joining Verizon Media, Anita held roles at: AOL, Microsoft, ITV, MTV and ZenithOptimedia both in Australia and in the UK. Prior to this, Anita taught media production and journalistic skills to college children in Long Island, USA.

Scott Joslin - SVP - Data Strategy at Turner

Bringing over 20 years of experience in Analytics, Research, Marketing and Sales Leadership, Scott is responsible for the oversight, direction, and management of Turner International’s data strategy, data technology strategy, and data platform management for all its divisions. His team manage data as a strategic asset to drive revenue, increase yield on advertising inventory, and enable more targeted and efficient consumer marketing and commerce opportunities.

Before joining Turner, Scott was the commercial and operations head at Arrivalist - a location-change attribution analytics start-up, based in New York.

Previous roles saw him responsible for overseeing the International advertising effectiveness efforts at comScore, and before that, his roles in research and Business Intelligence at AOL included the completion of the world’s most extensive enterprise web analytics implementation at the time.

Scott earned his B.A., Bilingual, in Political Science from Glendon College, the internationally oriented bilingual campus of York University in Toronto. He has much love for great food, a story well told, music played loud, and boisterous laughter with family and friends.

IAB Europe is looking for entries from talented and hard-working teams that have created some of the best digital research projects that are deserving of pan-European recognition awards for its IAB Europe Research Awards competition.

All winners will be announced at IAB Europe’s flagship conference, Interact 2019. Over 600 Industry leaders from across Europe’s digital advertising ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers, agencies to technology companies, are expected to attend the Interact 2019 event. This year the event is being held on 4-5 June in Warsaw, Poland. Tickets are now open for registration here.

At the end of last year, IAB Europe announced to members of the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) that a CMP Validator was being created. The Validator allows any CMP to be manually checked for a number of common compliance issues, where a CMP implementation does not adhere to the TCF technical specifications and/or TCF policies. In providing a full analysis of a CMP instance running on a site, the Validator will also play a key role in surfacing compliance issues that cannot be checked automatically, where human intervention is required – for example when the CMP user interface does not comply with TCF policies. Any CMP found not complying will be contacted by IAB Europe and advised what action they need to take. This is proving an invaluable support for CMP implementation. If a CMP is unable to take the necessary action in a given timeframe and remains non-compliant then they would be suspended from the Framework. An early version of the CMP Validator was released on February 1st to a small group of beta testers.

The CMP Validator has been built as a Chrome browser extension, which enables the tool to be run on any site, allowing it to analyse live CMP installations. The analysis presents information related to the implementation of the TCF technical specification, including data returned from the CMP API as well as the contents of the consent string. Going  forward  the tool will incorporate automated compliance checks, which we look forward to releasing to our community of CMPs in the coming weeks. The TCF was designed to help the digital advertising ecosystem comply to GDPR. This new CMP Validator further demonstrates the commitment that IAB Europe is making to help ensure the TCF’s sustainability.

IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the online advertising ecosystem, announced today the appointments of Patrick Verdon as Technical Director and Helen Mussard as Marketing & Business Strategy Director. In these newly-created roles, Verdon and Mussard join the organisation as it continues its mission to enable digital advertising to support media plurality and Europe’s digital economy, to shape the regulatory environment and to help companies process user data legally with the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF).

Verdon brings more than two decades of senior technical experience to his role as the first Technical Director for IAB Europe. In his new role, one of his principal tasks is supporting the TCF technical updates that will provide a more complete accommodation of the “legitimate interests” legal basis for data processing. Plans are also in place for a new set of signals that allow Consent Management Providers (CMPs) to offer users the “right to object” to processing on the basis of a “legitimate interest” and new granular controls for publishers about the data processing purposes permitted by them on a per vendor basis. Most recently, thanks to Verdon’s guidance, IAB Europe recently announced the development of a new CMP validation tool for the TCF.

IAB Europe, with collaboration across the industry, released the open-source Transparency and Consent Framework in April 2018. It’s the only GDPR consent solution that has been built by the industry, for the industry, creating a true industry-standard approach. This framework is helping publishers, technology vendors and marketers speak in the same language when it comes to obtaining user consent for data processing after GDPR. Version 2 of the framework is due to be released later this year in association with IAB Tech Lab.

Verdon brings a strong track-record of working in the Internet and mobile spaces and has held CTO roles in several successful start-ups. Most recently, he co-founded Databoxer, a CMP for websites. On joining IAB Europe Verdon said “My role will be focused on driving both product development and technical implementation across the Transparency and Consent Framework. I am coming back to my roots to ensure that the policy governance of the Framework takes good account of technology considerations, so we release a robust and commercially friendly updated version for all global stakeholders”.

Verdon will also be the team lead for IAB Europe’s new Technical Committee, which will convene for the first time in May2019, bringing together technology and business-side experts from IAB Europe member companies to ensure technical vetting of solutions the Association is driving to help the industry address challenges and leverage opportunities.

Mussard joins IAB Europe from a global AdTech company, Vibrant Media, where she was VP of Global Marketing. Her focus at IAB Europe in the first few months will be overseeing the release and implementation of the updated TCF to all industry stakeholders. Longer term she will be looking at how IAB Europe communicates with all constituents to help shape and implement the strategic objectives of the association, enabling digital advertising to innovate and scale throughout Europe.

Prior to joining Vibrant in New York, Helen lived in London and Berlin working both agency-side and in-house for TV channels, government organizations and digital start-ups.

Mussard said “IAB Europe is the leading voice for policy and regulatory discussions throughout the digital advertising ecosystem. Never has it been more important to defend and promote our industry to show the positive impact that digital advertising can have to consumers, publishers and advertisers. I’m incredibly excited to join Townsend and the team whilst we release our updated transparency and consent framework, to support the industry’s efforts to comply with GDPR and raise the standard and trust in online advertising”.

Speaking on the new hires, IAB Europe’s CEO, Townsend Feehan said “Patrick and Helen bring the perfect blend of technical brilliance and commercial intelligence to our work, at a time of huge change and opportunity in the industry. With new technologies and regulatory developments constantly changing, it’s important we are out in the market talking and listening to our members, to support their businesses, add real value, and ultimately enable digital advertising to scale across Europe.”

This article was originally published here

New research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), commissioned by Google, found that best-in-class digital marketers benefit from 1.4 times greater cost benefits and up to 2.5 times revenue impact.

IAB Europe would like to address the recent complaints filed against IAB Tech Lab's OpenRTB system to data protection authorities in the UK by Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock and privacy research Michael Veale; in Ireland by Johnny Ryan of ad-blocking browser Brave; and in Poland by Panoptykon Foundation president Katarzyna Szymielewicz. These complaints allege that programmatic advertising using real-time auctions, and specifically the IAB Tech Lab OpenRTB protocol, was inherently incompatible with EU data protection law. Moreover, the complaints allege that the mere use of OpenRTB inevitably entailed large-scale, uncontrolled release of users’ personal data without their being aware or able to do anything about it.  The complaints also took aim directly at IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), claiming that the TCF facilitates the purported breaches.

These claims are not only false but are intentionally damaging to the digital advertising industry and to European digital media that depend on advertising as a revenue stream.

Digital Advertising Complying with GDPR.

In April 2017, a year before GDPR came into force, in the context of discussing the then newly proposed ePrivacy Regulation, IAB Europe sent the European Commission a document to highlight challenges for the digital media and advertising industry to operate under the proposed combination of GDPR and ePrivacy rules. IAB Europe commented that "it is technically impossible for the user to have prior information about every data controller involved in a real-time bidding (RTB) scenario” -- a circumstance that was true at the time but has changed since.

Around the same time during 2017, IAB Europe, which represents a cross-section of the media, publishing, and advertising industry, began seeking for solutions to these challenges, and started to design and develop a framework to help all parties in the digital advertising chain comply with GDPR transparency and consent requirements. IAB Europe was concerned that without an industry standard, compliance would -- at best -- be expensive as a result of a fragmentation of solutions that are not interoperable, and -- at worst -- practically impossible for a lack of cross-industry cooperation and coordination. The resulting uncertainty and confusion for the online advertising ecosystem could have presented an existential challenge, which no one would want to see happen.

The objective of the Framework is to give media and advertising industry a common way of providing transparency, and a common language with which to communicate consumer choices for the processing of personal data in connection with online advertising and related purposes. IAB Europe managing and operating this Framework and its Policies today, collaborates with the IAB Tech Lab for the technical governance of the technical specifications used in the Framework. The Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) was launched on 25 April. It’s the only GDPR transparency and consent mechanism that has been built by the industry, for the industry, creating a true industry-standard approach.

The TCF enables users to receive information and give consent “in advance” to a number of vendors who are thereby able to process their personal data lawfully. In effect it creates a pool of 1 or more vendors who have prior permission to process personal data and informs them of their permission status through a near real-time signal. Receiving a signal of prior transparency and/or consent, enables the recipient of the signal to know whether they may lawfully process personal data or access a user’s device (to place cookies for example). The TCF enables users to receive information about, and give consent in advance to a set of controllers, only a subset of whom may end up processing their personal data in connection with any given ad impression.  The outcome for the user is the same as if there had been bilateral communication between a vendor wanting to process user data in connection with delivering an ad (with the vendor asking before processing the data). The Framework demonstrates that real-time bidding is certainly not “incompatible with consent under GDPR”.

OpenRTB is a protocol – that is, a set of rules and guidelines for communicating data. Protocols are neutral – they just say how information is to be laid out so that everyone who implements them understands everyone else. An example of a very simple protocol is the way we typically write out dates in shorthand. In Europe, the expected order is day-month-year. Because everyone uses the same “protocol” for this purpose, we all know what is meant by “01.02.2019” or 01/02/2019 or 01-02-2019.  The protocol does not say anything about why anyone wants to flag a particular date – it just gives us a universally-recognised way of doing it so that we do not waste time wondering what the information means. The OpenRTB protocol is a tool that can be used to determine which advertisement should be served on a given web page at a given time. Data can inform that determination. Like all tools, Open RTB must be used in a way that complies with the law. Doing so is entirely possible. More importantly, doing so is greatly facilitated by using the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework, whose whole raison d’être is to help ensure that the collection and processing of user data is done in full compliance with EU privacy and data protection rules, most notably the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy Directive.

Neither OpenRTB nor the TCF can be used to physically prevent the illegal transmission of user data to parties that have no legal right to receive it, but the law does not require them to.  Instead, it provides for punitive sanctions when such (mis)conduct by those using the systems occurs. A website (or intermediary operating on a site) that knowingly shares user data with parties that have no legal right to receive it is enabling a breach of the law. Processing personal data without a valid legal basis is a clear breach of the law, as well as TCF policies. CMPs and vendors who are found to do so will face consequences, potentially being subject to enforcement action by data protection authorities, and as a consequence be fined up to 4% of its annual turnover or EUR 20 million (whichever is larger) under the GDPR, in addition to being banned from using the TCF.

There are many instances in daily life where the law provides for ex post sanctions in case of breaches rather than ex ante requirements that prevent the opportunity for a breach even to arise.  Automobiles are not required to integrate functionality that absolutely prevents them from exceeding the speed limit – instead, drivers who do so are sanctioned with fines and/or deprived of their permits. The GDPR does not prohibit all processing of personal data, instead it sets out the conditions under which processing of personal data is lawful. None of these conditions is the absolute technical or require companies to implement technologies to physically block data collection and processing.

IAB Europe has consistently tried to outline the counter arguments and correct information, mentioned above, to the claimants. However, they have consistently chosen to ignore the facts and bring more inaccurate information to their case. Their errors of omission could therefore be characterised as either misrepresentations or just fabrications.

IAB Europe would like to address the recent complaints filed against IAB Tech Lab's OpenRTB system to data protection authorities in the UK by Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock and privacy research Michael Veale; in Ireland by Johnny Ryan of ad-blocking browser Brave; and in Poland by Panoptykon Foundation president Katarzyna Szymielewicz. These complaints allege that programmatic advertising using real-time auctions, and specifically the IAB Tech Lab’s OpenRTB protocol, are inherently incompatible with EU data protection law. Moreover, the complaints allege that the mere use of OpenRTB inevitably entailed large-scale, uncontrolled release of users’ personal data without their being aware or able to do anything about it. The complaints also took aim directly at IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), claiming that the TCF facilitates the purported breaches.

These claims are not only false but are intentionally damaging to the digital advertising industry and to European digital media that depend on advertising as a revenue stream.

Digital Advertising Complying with GDPR.

Most recently, one of the complainants released communications between IAB Europe and the European Commission from April 2017, in which IAB Europe highlighted challenges for the digital media and advertising industry to operate under the proposed combination of GDPR and ePrivacy rules in the context of discussions for an update to said ePrivacy rules. IAB Europe commented that "it is technically impossible for the user to have prior information about every data controller involved in a real-time bidding (RTB) scenario” -- a circumstance that was true at the time, but has changed since.

The complainants attempt to twist this statement to mean an admission that their claims have merit. However, as the claimants are aware, in the years since this statement was made, IAB Europe has worked with its members making up a cross-section of the media and advertising industry to offer solutions to this challenge by developing and releasing the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) in April 2018.

The TCF provides a way to provide transparency to users about how, and by whom, their personal data is processed. It also enables users to express choices. Moreover, the TCF enables vendors engaged in programmatic advertising to know ahead of time whether their own and/or their partners’ transparency and consent status allows them to lawfully process personal data for online advertising and related purposes. IAB Europe’s submission to the European Commission in April 2017 showed that the industry needed to adapt to meet higher standards for transparency and consent under the GDPR. The TCF demonstrates how complex challenges can be overcome when industry players come together. But most importantly, the TCF demonstrates that real-time bidding is certainly not “incompatible with consent under GDPR”.

The OpenRTB protocol is a tool that can be used to determine which advertisement should be served on a given web page at a given time. Data can inform that determination. Like all technology, OpenRTB must be used in a way that complies with the law. Doing so is entirely possible and greatly facilitated by the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework, whose whole raison d’être is to help ensure that the collection and processing of user data is done in full compliance with EU privacy and data protection rules.

The complaints lobbed against OpenRTB and the TCF take the view that their inherent incompatibility with the law stems from a hypothetical possibility for personal data to be processed unlawfully in the course of programmatic advertising processes. This hypothetical possibility arises because neither OpenRTB nor the TCF are capable of  physically preventing companies using the protocol to unlawfully process personal data. But the law does not require them to.

The GDPR does not prohibit processing of personal data, but it sets out the conditions under which processing of personal data is lawful. None of the conditions is the absolute technical impossibility for data to be processed unlawfully. There are many instances in daily life where the law provides for requirements, breaches of which are punished by sanctions after the fact, rather than requiring that breaches are technically impossible even to arise. Automobiles are not required to integrate functionality that absolutely prevents them from exceeding the speed limit. Instead, drivers are educated and trained in traffic rules, and drivers who violate speed limits are sanctioned with fines and/or deprived of their permits.

An online service (such as a website or an app) or an advertising technology company that shares or otherwise processes personal data without a lawful basis to do so, is in breach of the law. Companies who are found to do so will face consequences, such as being subject to enforcement action by data protection authorities, and as a consequence be fined up to 4% of its annual turnover or EUR 20 million (whichever is larger) under the GDPR. Relying on a combination of technical and legal controls, companies processing personal data in connection with online advertising can process personal data in full compliance with the law, just like drivers of automobiles can control their vehicle and prevent it from breaching the law.

IAB Europe has consistently tried to outline the counter arguments and correct information, mentioned above, to the claimants. However, they have consistently chosen to ignore the facts, bringing more inaccurate information to support their case. Their errors of omission could therefore be characterised as either misrepresentations or just fabrications.

For any further press enquiries, please contact

Helen Mussard, Marketing & Business Strategy Director, IAB Europe
mussard@iabeurope.eu

Interact is a must-attend event for the digital advertising industry. Join over 700 attendees, meet leading European advertisers, industry experts, agencies & media owners to get inspired & share best practices. 

Make sure to pre-register today and take advantage of the Early Bird rate! 

d3con is the world's largest programmatic event with 1500 attendees on April 3rd in Hamburg.

This year's keynote: How Buzzfeed editor Craig Silverman spend 2 years researching the business models behind ad fraud and uncovering the parties involved in it.

This and lots more at d3con on April 3rd in Hamburg. English translation available for German language sessions.

Get your tickets below with 10% discount through the IAB Europe partnership

Remember to also join us at 13.30 CET on the Main Stage for the International Experts’ Panel where leading professionals will discuss the latest trends in programmatic:

Make sure not to miss out on the IAB Europe Workshop: Introduction to Programmatic Advertising on 2 July, 16:46 CET on the Beach stage.

This session will provide an Introduction to Programmatic Advertising based on IAB Europe's eponymous course developed for Publishers, Agencies and Advertisers. We will dive into the basics of programmatic advertising, why it is growing and how it can be used as well as key trends that are defining the industry today.

IAB Europe is looking for entries from talented and hard-working teams that have created some of the best digital research projects that are deserving of pan-European recognition awards for its IAB Europe Research Awards competition.

The IAB Europe Research Awards are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your digital research projects and to show the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry.

The final deadline has now been extended to Friday 22 March.

Further information can be found in the entry notes here and you can submit your project here. 

Last year’s Research Awards, which took place at IAB Europe’s annual Interact event in Milan, awarded some of the industry’s best digital research projects. We have taken a look back at some of the inspiring work to help you with your 2019 entry. The winners of the 2019 competition will be presented at Interact in Warsaw on 4-5 June.

MÉDIAMÉTRE, NETRATINGS MÉDIAMÉTRIE –‘TOTAL INTERNET AUDIENCE’

Advertising Measurement

The winner for the Advertising Measurement category went to Mediametre's 'Total Internet Audience' project, which provided measurement and statistics for target audiences across France. This was created for business groups, brands, websites and apps, based on consumer usage across Computer, Mobile and Tablet.

OMD EMEA – ‘RETAIL REVOLUTION: HOW CONSUMERS ACCEPT, UNDERSTAND AND TRUST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE’

Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour

The idea behind the OMD EMEA ‘Retail Revolution’ study was to understand people’s perceptions, attitudes and beliefs behind Artificial Intelligence. They at how many people use AI, how many do not use it but would like to incorporate it into their daily lives, but also the reasons why a lot of people wouldn’t use it, e.g. lack of trust or control.

COMSCORE – ‘FREE VIEWABILITY’

Advertising Solutions

Winning the Advertising Solutions category, ComScore’s 'Free Viewability' allows digital media buyers a free service to brands for measurement of both video and display campaigns. This allowed them to very easily measure the behaviour of consumers, brands and audiences for geographic and demographic targets.

OMD SPAIN, OMNICOM MEDIA GROUP, ANNALECT - CROSSROADS™

Consumer Devices

Combining both audio-data collection technology and an APP-meter to collect sounds and in real-time (not recorded), they hashed and coded them. They experimented with this to analyse the data using Google Analytics. The winners recognised that there has been a huge drop in traditional linear-TV  audiences (due to a rise in users streaming through other channels and also watching on alternative devices), so their objective behind this was to analyse the audiences’ content consumption and behavioural information, in relation to mobile usage.

OATH, PILOT, VIRAO – ‘USER INSIGHTS FROM ANOTHER REALITY’

Advertising Formats

Oath collaborated with Pilot and Virao to create a virtual smart home in Germany. They collectively conducted research to accurately find out how brands engage with users. They did this by hosting virtual sessions in the smart home with a handful of ad placements carefully positioned around the home.

BBC GLOBAL NEWS LIMITED – SOE TOOLKIT

Research and Data Innovation

The cost-effective browser-based SoE Toolkit allows for ease when measuring effectiveness against campaign objectives. Their research allowed them to analyse the impact of branded content and the ways in which the campaign objectives were successfully met.
To take a look at more of the IAB Europe Research Award winners, click here.

Further information can be found in the entry notes here and you can submit your project here. 

The 2019 categories are: Brand Advertising Effectiveness, Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour, Consumer Devices, Digital Advertising Formats, Advertising Solutions, Research and Data Innovation, Audience Measurement, Best Use of Research Budget. You are welcome to enter one of more of these.

Why enter?

• Get your work recognised at a pan-European level
• Get your work in front of Industry leaders
• Develop business opportunities
• Benchmark your work against competitors
• Inspire the community
• Challenge and reward your team

Our MIXX Awards Europe 2019 competition is also open for entries with the same deadlines. The MIXX Awards Europe are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your digital advertising campaigns to be showcased and the show the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry.

To take a look at the MIXX Awards Europe competition winners from last year, click here.

IAB Europe is looking for entries from talented and hard-working teams that have created some of the best digital advertising campaigns that are deserving of the European-recognised awards for its MIXX Awards Europe competition.

The MIXX Awards Europe are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your European campaigns and to educate the marketplace about what works and why in digital marketing, as well as inspire the industry by highlighting new ideas and future trends.

All European campaigns that have won a digital award in a national or international award competition are invited to participate.

The final deadline has now been extended to Friday 22 March.

Further information can be found in the entry notes here and you can submit your project here. 

Last year’s MIXX Awards, which took place at IAB Europe’s annual Interact event in Milan, awarded some of the industry’s best digital campaigns. We have taken a look back at some of the inspiring work to help you with your 2019 entry.  The winners of the 2019 competition will be presented at Interact in Warsaw on 4-5 June.

PEOPLE INITIATIVE – ‘FROM INSIDE THE PLOT’

MIXX Awards Europe Grand Prix, Branded Content, Responsive Display Advertising and Integrated Advertising

HERE.

People Initiative were not only the winners of three categories last year, but they also took home the MIXX Awards Europe Grand Prix for their captivating ‘From Inside The Plot’ campaign for Fiat. The idea was to release a series of mini episodes of a main character injured by an unexpected shooter. They used Shazam to integrate 360-degree video technologies to unmask the shooter, which attracted a lot of attention all over social media.

LDV UNITED – ‘DARE TO PLAY’

Campaign Effectiveness

HERE.

Last year's Campaign Effectiveness category gold award went to LDV United for their inspirational 'Dare To Play' campaign, which looked at 6 athletes who suffered from separate mental disabilities, wanting to change the world and break social norms and expectations. The impressive and heart-warming campaign grabbed attention from athletes worldwide.

RAFINERI – ‘SAHIBINDEN: WARM HOME FOR ALL’

Display Advertising

HERE.

Winning the Gold Award for Display Advertising, we introduce 'Sahibinden: Warm Home For All' by Rafineri. The campaign aimed to increase the rate of pet adoption, by placing strategic ads of animals looking for a home, on banners of local pages of homes for sale. This strategy doubled the pet re-homing rate from 24.5% to 51%.

MEDIACOM – ‘AKBANK JAZZ VERSION OF THE CITY’

Effective Use of Data

HERE.

Winning Gold for Effective Use of Data, Mediacom created the 'Akbank Jazz Version of The City'. They worked closely with The HKU University of the Arts Conservatory in the Netherlands, to create algorithms that generates words from notes. Their vision was to turn the City into Jazz. This allowed them to create 87,000 songs, which received them a whopping 117 million social media impressions!

HAVAS MEDIA GROUP – ‘TOUR DE TECH’

Mobile Display Advertising

HERE.

Winning Gold for the Mobile Display Advertising category, the Havas Media Group ran their 'Tour De Tech' campaign, a new cycling scheme around the UK which encourages commuters to cycle around big cities, 24/7, free of charge. It rewards cyclists through an app for riding the bicycles, funded through brands adding logo stickers to the bicycles, creating a level of brand awareness.

EKSTRA BLADET – ‘DENMARK’S BEST IDEA’

Native Advertising

HERE.

Creating 'Denmark's Best Idea' won Ekstra Bladet the Gold Award in the Native Advertising category. This created a powerful and engaging tabloid read, which encouraged users to come forward and share their ideas for how to make Denmark a better place. This created a lot of competition as it brought attention to the site, with Allan Hyldbech winning an award for his contribution to the site with 'Swop Box'.

INITIATIVE RUSSIA – ‘DRY SHAMPOO’

Programmatic Advertising

HERE.

By finding a place in the market for dry shampoo, Initiative Russia won the Gold Award for Programmatic Advertising. Their effective and engaging campaign found a place in the market for the hair product for Russian women having difficulty washing their hair with no access to hot water. They used statistics and high-precision targeted advertising to reach their audience.

AKBANK – ‘THE FUTURE OF SEARCH ADS’

Search Advertising

HERE.

Winning Gold for Search Advertising, Akbank's 'The Future of Search Ads' ran powerful search engine campaigns to sell credit cards to online consumers. They used personalised search engine ads and tailored them to their target audience, for maximum effect. They did this by analysing social media behaviours to get an idea of their lifestyle, this boosted their sales by 95%.

GOLLIN AND MULLENLOWE ROMANIA – ‘ELECTRIC CASTLE – UNOFFICIAL PARTNERS’

Social Media

HERE.

After running a huge campaign across social media, the idea behind Electric Castle - Unofficial Partners reached 1.4 million people, winning them the Gold Award for Social Media. They wanted to attract international sponsors to donate money so that Electric Castle festival-goers could have the Monday off work, meaning they were able to spend an extra day at the festival. This led to 170 official partners donating, therefore 25% more attendees on the Sunday than previous years.

MEDIACOM – ‘SEA HERO QUEST VR’

Virtual and Augmented Reality

HERE.

By creating the virtual and augmented reality game 'Sea Hero Quest VR', MediaCom were able to help scientists diagnose dementia in those playing the game and has therefore helped revolutionise dementia research. Many have claimed it isn't just a game, it's a quest to help fight dementia.

To take a look at more of the MIXX Awards Europe 2018 winners, click here.

Further information can be found in the entry notes here and you can submit your project here. 

The 2019 categories are: Brand Advertising, Direct Response / Lead Generation, Video Advertising, Social Media, Search Advertising, Native Advertising, Branded Content, Responsive Display Advertising, Virtual and Augmented Reality, or other new technologies, Campaign Effectiveness, Programmatic Advertising, Integrated Advertising, Effective Use of Data. You are welcome to enter one or more of these.

Why enter?

• Get your work recognised at a pan-European level
• Get your work in front of Industry leaders
• Develop business opportunities
• Benchmark your work against competitors
• Inspire the community
• Challenge and reward your team

Our IAB Europe Research Awards 2019 competition is also open for entries with the same deadlines. The IAB Europe Research Awards are an opportunity to gain industry recognition for your digital research projects to be showcased and the show the contribution they have made to the development of the digital advertising industry.

To take a look at the IAB Europe Research Awards competition winners from last year, click here.

By Victoria Chappell, Senior Marketing Director, EMEA, Integral Ad Science

Digital advertising is a change driven business. To better understand the impact of top priorities and concerns in the year to come, we asked over 150 professionals about the challenges they face, the upcoming opportunities they consider most important, and how those factors will drive industry-wide change – and direct ad budgets – over the course of 2019.

From data privacy, fake news, through to social media and AI, the IAS UK Industry Pulse report research highlighted a resounding call for better collaboration between agencies, brands and publishers, as well as greater transparency across the digital ecosystem.

The key findings from our latest UK Industry Pulse report were:

UK industry misalignment

When assessing the key priorities across the industry, we found distinct misalignment amongst UK respondents. Agency respondents agreed data privacy was the most pressing issue for 2019, brand respondents chose lack of consistent measurement across the entire media plan, whilst publishers opted for ad fraud.

Buy-side misalignment was further highlighted when looking at where future opportunities lie. Brands remain focused on multi-touch attribution and have begun to see greater opportunity in cross-device measurement. Over 2019, we expect to see more industry initiatives tackle measurement across the entire media plan – Unilever, for example, are beginning to show the possibilities of this.

In contrast to the brands, half of agency professionals (50%) surveyed are placing bets on AI and machine learning as the top future opportunity for digital advertising in the UK over the coming year.

Tighter collaboration and improved communication between all will be crucial this year if we are to successfully address key priorities such as consistent measurement and ad fraud head on.

Data privacy: the forefront focus

With the arrival of GDPR, data privacy has moved to become the top UK priority for the advertising industry – over half (55.5%) of all respondents felt data privacy was the top challenge for 2019, a significant 39% increase compared to the IAS Industry Pulse survey last year. It appears a sense of positivity towards the future of data protection has been instilled amongst UK respondents, nearly two-thirds (65.3%) said data privacy regulations improve business function. However, concerns do remain, with over half of respondents (61.2%) agreeing new regulations pose a significant threat to the entire digital advertising ecosystem. This mixed reaction to data privacy highlights a need for greater understanding of new and upcoming regulations and insight into how businesses will be impacted.

Opportunity of Amazon, AI and video

Overall, across the UK digital advertising industry, the greatest future opportunities were felt to be within video, AI and machine learning. Just over two fifths (41.1%) of respondents saw the future in video advertising, whilst 40.2% saw this in AI and machine learning.

When looking at platforms attracting larger ad budget allocation, Amazon was found to be set for a boost – with a majority (81.6%) of respondents believing Amazon will gain a larger portion of UK budgets in 2019. UK respondents are seeing that online consumers do not just visit the eCommerce giant to make a purchase; they also use it to discover and research relevant products. Amazon provides an attractive environment where consumers are ready to complete a purchase, making for an easy sell to buyers.

The UK Industry Pulse report clearly reflects the need for closer agency and brand collaboration, greater transparency into media quality, and wider understanding of data privacy regulations. To capitalise on the opportunities in 2019, the industry must work together to realise the true potential of digital advertising. Reaching the right audience, with the right message, at the right time on the right device is no mean feat, but by first finding agreement on the challenges ahead, in 2019 we have a chance to get closer than ever before.

Transitioning to transparency

Transparency was an overwhelming industry desire revealed in our research, with both brands and agencies calling for greater insight into the quality of digital media – specifically, 83.3% of brands perceived an overall lack of media quality transparency as the main threat to ad budget expenditure. Social media was also flagged, with more than eight out of ten (84%) of respondents noting that social platforms do not provide adequate transparency.

In a conclusive statement, seven out of ten (70.2%) of buy-side respondents said that without greater clarity into social media platforms, their social budgets will be impacted in 2019. Social media platforms must act now, providing more meaningful insight into performance and measurement, or risk losing greater budget allocations. We have begun to see social platforms already begin to address the need for greater transparency, with the partnerships they are creating with third-party measurement and verification companies. At IAS, we have recently announced our brand safety work with YouTube and our upcoming release with Facebook.

Download here: IAS UK Industry Pulse report, a deep dive into the trends, technologies, and priorities set to drive change across the UK’s digital advertising landscape in 2019.