IAB Europe in partnership with IAB France are pleased to announce the launch of a new joint initiative ‘The Post Third-Party Cookie Taskforce’. This follows on from IAB Europe’s recent release of ‘The Post Third-Party Cookie Era Guide, to prepare brands, agencies, publishers and tech intermediaries for the much-anticipated post-third-party cookie advertising ecosystem’.
With impending changes to the technology landscape for user tracking and identifiers, the future of online advertising depends on giving users trusted choices about their experience that respect their privacy preferences. The Post Third-Party Cookie Taskforce will help to ensure strong European input into reflections being conducted within the W3C and IAB Tech Lab’s “Project Rearc” on the evolution of digital advertising and potential new paradigms.
IAB Europe is delighted to have the opportunity to host this effort jointly with IAB France Cookieless Task Force Lead by Augustin Decré, Managing Director South Europe at Index Exchange and IAB France Board Member. The Post Third-Party Cookie Taskforce will be co-chaired by the following: Patrick Verdon - IAB Europe Technical Director, Charles-Henri Hénault - VP Product Ads platform at Criteo, Noël Jaffré, Senior Director, Solutions Consulting at Index Exchange, Thibault Montanier - Data Manager and Integration Specialist at Sirdata, representing IAB France.
The joint taskforce will bring European National IABs and their corporate members together to both promote “home-grown” European ideas that surface within the taskforce and to consolidate and submit feedback on proposals emanating from the W3C and Rearc, including the Chrome Privacy Sandbox. Providing users with choices that they can make with confidence based on information is the key to ensuring a fair and transparent advertising industry that can sustain the open Internet we know today. This new taskforce will help to shape the technical standards and the future paradigm that will redefine our industry.
Participation in the taskforce is open to all IAB Europe, IAB France and other National IAB corporate members (even if those corporate members are not members of either IAB France or IAB Europe). In light of the strong emphasis on privacy and data protection that features in the W3C, Project Rearc and Google Sandbox work-tracks, the taskforce will develop separate working groups in the coming weeks.
The taskforce will convene bi-weekly for the foreseeable future, starting in early June.
Interested and eligible members (must be a member of IAB Europe or a National IAB) should email Colombe Michaud - Michaud@iabeurope.eu
On 3rd June, IAB Europe will be hosting our flagship event Interact, virtually! This free-to-attend virtual conference will allow the digital advertising and marketing industry to interact online! It’s never been more important to come together to help support, build and sustain our innovative industry. Expert speakers include senior executives from Coca-Cola, Zalando, Adform, Google, ProSieben, RTL, GroupM, OMD and OneTrust.
There is still time to register for free here.
In the run up to the event, we wanted to introduce you to some of the great speakers that will be discussing and debating the latest industry topics in our panel sessions.
We are pleased to introduce Oliver Whitten, COO at Adform.
Q. Firstly, thank you for supporting Interact Online. Thanks to the help of our sponsors, we’ve been able to create a free event for all of the industry to join. Apart from your own session, what are you most looking forward to seeing at Interact Online?
I’m very much looking forward to hearing Daniel Knapp’s research and the following panel on the outlook for the digital market. I‘m particularly interested in his take on the effects of Covid on the outlook for the rest of the year.
Q. What is your role at Adform and what’s been your focus so far this year?
I am Adform‘s Chief Operating Officer and lead all commercial and client facing aspects of the business. We have been very focussed on scaling our US business this year and are seeing great traction both with domestic and global clients. In addition, like many, we’ve been very focussed on supporting clients through the Covid crisis, including particular initiatives around adapting creative messaging through DCO and reaching consumers via Video and CTV.
Q. Outside of work (and before the lockdown) what do you most enjoy doing in your free time?
Like many, I love going on holiday with my family, especially skiing. We were actually booked to go to France just before the lockdown started, but pulled the plug at the last minute ... very glad we did as we easily could have been among the thirty thousand Brits that got stuck in Geneva airport! Fingers crossed that we can all take some holidays later in the summer and support some of the deeply impacted regions.
Q. You will be participating in the ‘Changing Roles and Responsibilities across the Value Chain’ panel. Ahead of the session, can you share your thoughts on how roles and responsibilities have changed within digital advertising over the last 12 months?
The industry has been on a journey to mature over the past 10+ years and, whilst I don’t think the value chain discussion is new, and we are still battling with many of the same issues - transparency, brand safety, fraud etc, I do see some positive maturing of business practices over the past year.
Most notable, I think, are that advertisers are increasingly owning their tech and supplier contracts, with a four way relationship emerging between brands, agencies, consultancies and vendors. This is certainly positive, as increased understanding of the value chain by brands shines light on the more challenging parts of the market and helps the industry move forwards.
Second, I would point to the increased focus and shifting ownership of the supply path. This takes a lot of different forms; in some cases agencies and brands building their own supply paths with publishers, in others, preferred partnerships with SSPs and exchanges. All of this helps to create more transparency, resulting in more investment going towards working media and thereby funding quality content. Clearly, there’s still a long way to go in this area, but we are seeing green shoots of a better way to transact media, which must be seen as positive.
Q: We’ve seen the creation of Chief Privacy Officers, Brand Safety Managers, what do you think will be the two most important roles in the next 2 years?
First, all roles dealing with identity, be that in terms of the technology, making the most of available signals or from a privacy perspective. It’s critical that marketers can continue to understand and reach their consumers in digital environments and everyone in the sector will need to focus on this in the coming years.
Second, I think we’re headed for a period where all businesses in the sector will need to be highly optimised to thrive. As such it will be important to have a focus on business fundamentals. This would suggest that a strong and tech savvy CFO is what most companies need through what looks likely to be a difficult market backdrop.
Q: Transparency is key in digital advertising - how do you think we can work together as an industry to continue to improve transparency?
The industry has shown it can develop and implement standards quickly, for example TCF as a response to GDPR or Ads.txt as a response to inventory fraud. As other issues such as supply chain transparency come to the fore, it’s crucial that we collaborate as an industry to develop the needed standards in these areas and get them to a relevant level of market adoption rapidly.
Q. Why should people attend Interact?
It’s more important than ever to come together to share and learn. Usually we might meet over lunch, at an event or at the water cooler but the distance created by the Covid situation makes it harder to share ideas and opinions and thereby move our industry forward. We’re still battling with many fundamental problems as a sector, and I am sure interact will provide a great forum to address them.
Q. What’s your top tip for getting through lockdown?
A trampoline for the kids ... and then wine for the adults!
As part of its Global Ad Trends series, WARC spoke to industry leaders for insight into advertising investment projections in light of COVID-19. IAB Europe’s Chief Economist Daniel Knapp was one of the experts to share their views. Read his article below and access the full article on WARC.com here.
Forecasts on quicksand: the impact of Covid-19 on ad expenditure and the digital new normal
In its April 2020 forecast, the IMF predicts that Covid-19 and the global lockdown will spark the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It expects the global economy to shrink by 3%, with many Western markets expected to post declines of 6% or more. This compares to a 0.1% contraction of the global economy during the financial crisis of 2008/09, whose shock sat so deep for the advertising economy that leading industry commentators have termed the following decade of advertising investment as ‘Post-Lehman’.
The coming years will thus be measured as another distinct era, shaped by the events in 2020. Short-term, this is due to the severity of the advertising contraction in full shape right now. Mid-term, this era will be associated with 2020 as an accelerant of latent and incremental trends towards more digital consumption, commerce and thus advertising.
Yet such an outlook appears esoteric right now. Experts struggle to even quantify the exact impact of Covid-19 on the ad market for 2020. The basic dynamics are known. Advertising expenditure does not just follow economic trends – it amplifies them. This is particularly the case if economic growth is flat or negative.
All three advertising recessions in Europe over the past 20 years – the dot com crash and 9/11 in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008/2009 and the Eurozone crisis in 2012 showed this dynamic. However, history is not always a good guide. The current situation lacks precedent in its combination of factors from epidemiological to policy and economic issues, all while embedded in a global environment that is impossible to control in a purely local setting.
The potential pace of change is immense. Whereas previous recessions saw a gradual decline of ad spend, market behaviour in 2020 was abrupt. Q1 data from local sources (e.g. IREP in France), and company reports across the board from TV to digital showed how after a stable January and February, ad markets in Europe suddenly collapsed in the second half of March without much warning.
Even the economic outlook itself is far from clear. For instance, The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, an alternative economic metric that tracks sentiment in news reports to infer economic outlook, is on a record high since its inception in the 1990s. Unlike the IMF statement, this index does not tell us how bad the recession is, but that even economists cannot agree on the shape of the decline, its magnitude and recovery scenarios.
The IMF itself has developed several additional GDP growth scenarios based on further waves of Covid-19 outbreak. This high volatility of the macro environment stresses the limits of existing forecasting methods. Ad forecasters live dangerously right now, and the end of year will look different than any current prediction. Constant revision is critical, which reduces the half-life of forecasts, degrading them to meditations on the present and broad signposts for the future.
Nevertheless, macroeconomic indicators, paired with industry data, are the best modelling ingredients we have. A regression model based on IMF data for GDP and other macro-economic indicators provides us with an estimated decline of the total UK ad market of 13.3%, and 16.3% for all of Europe (including the UK).
This forecast, conducted in May, is more optimistic than our April forecast. We have factored in the easing of lockdown restrictions (Government Response Stringency Index, University of Oxford) and additional signal from Q1 company reports. Crucially, especially the walled gardens reported better than expected results and indication of a bottoming out of ad declines in April with signs of slowing year-on-year declines in May.
This improved outlook from some companies may suggest that as in 2009, digital will fare better than traditional media. Indeed, we currently expect digital ad spend to decline by -5.5% in 2020 in Europe compared to a stronger contraction (-21.3%) for other media. However, the dualism of digital versus traditional media is overly simplistic. The switch-on/switch-off nature of biddable media means that parts of digital advertising were often more immediately impacted than other media channels that have higher advance commitments. But these same properties, paired with lower production costs, also means that it can recover more quickly.
Moreover, trajectories between direct response and branding within digital vary vastly. The function of a medium matters more than its label – does it drive immediate and measurable ROI? Fuelled by the explosion of e-commerce, gaming and other indoor activities during the ‘great lockdown’, direct response channels are advantaged in the current climate. But there are exceptions to the rule.
Some FMCG brands who advertise anti-cyclically and digitally native brands who want to broaden awareness are taking advantage of low rates on TV. We believe branding will come back at a larger scale in Q4, particularly in digital video. Based on current information, we have provisionally modelled the impact trajectory of different (digital) advertising channels on a monthly basis for 2020 and can see stark differences in depth of impact and recovery patterns.
Exhibit 1: Europe: Ad Spend growth forecast by month (2020)
The shape of the recovery has been compared to nearly every letter in the alphabet, with ‘V’ being our preferred option. But it is likely that the rebound will look different across media, across advertiser categories and across individual brands. Our own channel checks suggest that assuming no change in economic outlook, the worst is over and that June ad spend may look more like a reversed March.
Easing of travel restrictions, re-openings of business and the continuation of the Bundesliga in Germany are encouraging signs. But any stabilisation is built on quicksand. If current (encouraging) company outlooks falter and an April-like situation drags into Q3, we may be approaching a -20% ad market scenario for Europe.
Crucially, the marketing response to the pandemic to date was rooted in the lockdown and the inability of businesses to operate, paired with risk mitigation. It was a supply-side issue. However, rising unemployment and squeezed personal expenditure can turn the ad downturn into a crisis of consumer demand, even when the lockdown is lifted and businesses can operate again.
In particular for digital, SMBs are essential for advertising recovery. Should government support schemes work as intended, these companies will be some of the earliest to return – marketing sits high on their balance sheet as a cost of sales – imperative for doing business in the first place.
Early experience in China has also shown that some sectors, like fashion, are set for a V-shaped recovery. Yet many clients cannot return over night. When production has been dormant for weeks and months, it takes time to recover. Key advisers in large segments such as travel are facing existential threats.
We expect a phased market recovery. It will take the overall ad market about three years in total to recover from this downturn, with a 12 to 14-month time-frame for digital. But the post-pandemic advertising world will look different from today’s market. We expect more consolidation in digital and agency-side and budgets cut from traditional media in particular will not fully return.
Paid-media itself has been under-performing investments in broader communication activities based on data and digital services. These areas will continue to capture marketing budgets at a faster rate to help businesses navigate deeper structural changes in the ‘new normal’.
Mid-term, the prized question is to what extent consumer behaviour established during the lockdown will solidify into long-term change and become institutionalised. There is no shortage of news and statistics about new heights in media consumption and communication, from video calls over connected TV viewing, e-sports and gaming to an explosion of e-commerce. This is echoed by companies fast-tracking their digital offerings and trying to close innovation gaps that business as usual could cover up for too long. These data cast Covid-19 as an accelerant for digital change. Some might conclude that the current new normal will also inevitably be the long-term new normal.
However, change is hard. Economic and behavioural studies paint a more complex picture on whether traumatic experiences or recessions lead to long-term behaviour change, as a New York Times article from the 2009 financial crisis illustrates (‘Recession Resolutions, Like New Year’s, May Be Hard to Keep’, Alina Tugend, 4 Dec 2009).
For instance, post 9/11, church attendance was up, but a religious reawakening of America was stifled by levels dropping back to normal in 2002. While past recessions triggered short-term changes in the savings rate, these were blips as rates reverted to pre-recession levels quickly. But other evidence also suggests a recession can have a life-changing outlook in formative years.Whether our pandemic consumption patterns will stick is a productive field for futurists, pundits and academic researchers alike. But let’s get our ad spend forecasts for 2020 right first.
On 3rd June, IAB Europe will be hosting our flagship event Interact, virtually! This free-to-attend virtual conference will allow the digital advertising and marketing industry to interact online! It’s never been more important to come together to help support, build and sustain our innovative industry. Expert speakers include senior executives from Coca-Cola, Zalando, Adform, Google, ProSieben, RTL, GroupM, OMD and OneTrust.
In the run up to the event, we wanted to introduce you to some of the great speakers that will be discussing and debating the latest industry topics in our panel sessions.
We are pleased to introduce Mark Howe, Managing Director EMEA Agencies at Google.
Q. Firstly, thank you for supporting Interact Online. Thanks to the help of our sponsors, we’ve been able to create a free event for all of the industry to join. Apart from your own session, what are you most looking forward to seeing at Interact Online?
Mark: I always find Daniel Knapp’s market perspectives super interesting. In these challenging times it will be fascinating to see how he has formulated his outlook for the year ahead.
Q. What is your role at Google and what’s been your focus so far this year?
Mark: My role at Google is to oversee our EMEA Agency facing sales teams & our team that supports the many Advertising Trade Associations in our major markets.
Given what’s happening globally right now, Advertising Agencies & our Specialist Agencies are naturally going through challenging times. Supporting them & supporting our sales teams in a remote working environment has been a huge priority.
Meanwhile there has been no shortage of industry developments that our Industry Relations team has been working to progress, such as our Chrome announcements, TCF, ads privacy projects and our global outreach to support publishers, journalists and SMBs at this unprecedented time.
Q. Outside of work (and before the lockdown) what do you most enjoy doing in your free time?
Mark: My sport of choice these days is open water swimming, alongside a bit of cycling with my mates. I taught myself to swim front crawl after a major back operation & since then I’ve managed to swim the “Escape from Alcatraz” race three times (the water’s a bit chilly). Last year I raced my first 10km river swim breaking my target of three hours & then swam the Hellespont & Dardanelles swim in Turkey crossing from Europe to Asia. All a great way to spend a weekend with your mates. Sadly this year I'm stuck on dry land.
Q. You will be providing a short presentation ahead of the Sustainable Advertising in a Privacy-Centric World panel, which will be looking at the role first-party data will play. Can you share some of your insights ahead of the session?
Mark: If the last ten years were about third-party cookies, the next ten will be about first-party data quality.
We’ve just published some new research with BCG that focuses specifically on first party data - data that companies can collect directly from their users, with their explicit approval, and can help to drive greater relevance for customers, and better business results.
We also found that top marketers established a transparent, equitable value exchange with their users -- and that this was key to ongoing success. I look forward to sharing more at Interact Online.
Q. The depletion of third-party cookies is just one of the efforts to create sustainable advertising in a privacy centric world, what do you think the next priority is?
Mark: As well as investing in first party data, another priority for advertisers will be the shift from a Precision to a Prediction Era. We’re shifting from an era of user-level precision controlled at the advertiser/publisher level to advanced machine learning models learning from larger cohorts of audiences determined at the browser level. This will significantly change how audience reach is done today; however, greater reliance on automation and contextual signals have the potential to meet performance standards achieved today. The next few years will mark the new era of automated audience models.
Q. Why should people attend Interact Online?
Mark: We were of course looking forward to getting together in sunny Lisbon and hope that we can do that next year. But in the meantime, what a fantastic opportunity to get the whole industry together - at no cost - and discuss the issues that matter.
While we know we must be physically distant, being socially connected is crucial. I’m looking forward to discussing privacy and taking questions from IAB members across Europe.
Q. What’s the best work related advice you’ve ever been given?
Mark: Always be true to yourself. Take off the mask and be the best you can be at what you’re best at...and whilst you’re doing that, bet on yourself!
For more information on Interact Online and to secure your free registration, please visit stg-iabeurope-iabeuropeold.kinsta.cloud/interact/
We are delighted to announce the shortlist of finalists for our prestigious MIXX Awards Europe and IAB Europe Research Awards. The annual award competitions showcase the very best of digital advertising from across Europe and the winners will be published on 3rd June during our Interact Online event.
Celebrating and sharing the very latest innovations in digital advertising research and campaign development is a key IAB Europe objective and we would like to thank everyone who took the time to enter.
Thank you to our jury of experts from across the digital advertising and research industry who dedicated hours of their time to reviewing and discussing all entries.
MIXX AWARDS EUROPE SHORTLIST
Brand Advertising
Campaign: #nudoarluni
Media Agency: The Onion Media
Advertiser: 5 to go
Watch the video
Campaign: A-Class Sedan Celebrations
Creative Agency: Publicis Emil Turkey
Advertiser: Mercedes-Benz Turkey
Watch the video
Campaign: Building Memories
Media Agency: Socialab
Advertiser: LEGO
Watch the video
Branded Content
Campaign: "Jak TO Robić?" / "How to do IT?"
Media Agency: Abstra
Advertiser: Durex / Reckitt Benckiser
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znDYTQlQMFc&feature=youtu.be
Campaign: #nudoarluni
Media Agency: The Onion Media
Advertiser: 5 to go
Watch the video
Campaign: FIX HELLAS - GAZZETTA FOOD BALL
Media Agency: UM
Advertiser: FIX - Olympic Brewery
Watch the video
Campaign: OLX for International Women's Day
Media Agency: 180heartbeats + JUNG v MATT
Advertiser: OLX Poland
Watch the video
Campaign: Exclusive Club for Night Owls
Media Agency: Hype
Advertiser: Turkcell
Watch the video
Campaign Effectiveness
Campaign: Come back to Bulgaria
Media Agency: proof.
Advertiser: TELUS International Europe
Watch the video
Campaign: "Coke Energy - This Energy is For You
Media Agency: CARAT MEDIA TURKEY
Advertiser: The Coca-Cola Company
Watch the video
Campaign: Transforming Digital Media into Business Outcomes for Ford
Media Agency: GTB, Xaxis EMEA & Mindshare
Advertiser: Ford
Watch the video
Campaign: A-Class Sedan Celebrations
Creative Agency: Publicis Emil Turkey
Advertiser: Mercedes-Benz Turkey
Watch the video
Campaign: €200,000 additional monthly revenue through personalisation
Media Agency: Fingerspitz
Advertiser: Plein.nl
Watch the video
Campaign: Search and beyond. Profitable growth of the market leader.
Media Agency: Adequate
Advertiser: Vola.ro
Watch the video
Campaign: Eti Puf Music Academy
Media Agency: milklab / MG Media
Advertiser: Eti Puf
Watch the video
[NEW] Digital OOH Advertising
Campaign: Lay's 4 Seasons / Spring and Summer / Digital OOH
Media Agency: OMD
Advertiser: PepsiCo
Watch the video
Direct Response / Lead Generation
Campaign: Axess Card - I'm Feeling Lucky
Media Agency: Hype
Advertiser: Axess
Watch the video
Campaign: Come back to Bulgaria
Media Agency: proof.
Advertiser: TELUS International Europe
Watch the video
Campaign: Search and beyond. Profitable growth of the market leader.
Media Agency: Adequate
Advertiser: Vola.ro
Watch the video
Campaign: Sprite Striking Refreshment Solutions
Media Agency: CARAT MEDIA TURKEY
Advertiser: The Coca-Cola Company
Watch the video
Campaign: Exclusive Club for Night Owls
Media Agency: Hype
Advertiser: Turkcell
Watch the video
Effective Use of Data
Campaign: The Great Google Shopping Hack
Media Agency: Neodigital
Advertiser: Yalı Spor
Watch the video
Campaign: Mobile Proximity Marketing for BP
Media Agency: Mindshare Poland
Advertiser: BP
Watch the video
Campaign: Transforming Digital Media into Business Outcomes for Ford
Media Agency: GTB, Xaxis EMEA & Mindshare
Advertiser: Ford
Watch the video
Campaign: Come back to Bulgaria
Media Agency: proof.
Advertiser: TELUS International Europe
Watch the video
Campaign: €200,000 additional monthly revenue through personalisation
Media Agency: Fingerspitz
Advertiser: Plein.nl
Watch the video
Campaign: Discover how you like them best
Media Agency: iPROM, d. o. o. ; Valicon d.o.o.
Advertiser: Atlantic Group d. d.
Watch the video
Campaign: Exclusive Club for Night Owls
Media Agency: Hype
Advertiser: Turkcell
Watch the video
[NEW] Games & E-Sports
Campaign: Eti Puf Music Academy
Media Agency: milklab / MG Media
Advertiser: Eti Puf
Watch the video
Campaign: An unexpected return to the studio
Media Agency: MediaCom Warsaw/Fantasyexpo
Advertiser: Old Spice / Procter & Gamble
Watch the video
Campaign: The Generation T
Media Agency: Hype
Advertiser: Akbank
Watch the video
[NEW] Influencer Marketing
Campaign: Bosch Variosytle Influencers meets data
Media Agency: OMD Turkey
Advertiser: Bosch / BSH Turkey
Watch the video
Campaign: Generation Z chooses Rexona
Media Agency: Initiative Russia
Advertiser: Rexona / Unilever
Watch the video
Campaign: Foundation Portraits
Media Agency: proof.
Advertiser: Avon
Watch the video
Integrated Advertising
Campaign: Dove #ShowUs Russia
Media Agency: Initiative Russia
Advertiser: Dove / Unilever
Watch the video
Campaign: Coke Energy - This Energy is For You
Media Agency: CARAT MEDIA TURKEY
Advertiser: The Coca-Cola Company
Watch the video
Campaign: TASTE OF DODONI
Media Agency: Universal Media
Advertiser: Dodoni S.A.
Watch the video
Native Advertising
Campaign: TASTE OF DODONI
Media Agency: Universal Media
Advertiser: Dodoni S.A.
Watch the video
[NEW] Non-Profit / Corporate Social Responsibility
Campaign: Bitwa o Neta
Media Agency: Artegence
Advertiser: PKO Bank Polski
Watch the video
Campaign: FASOFF
Creative Agency: MOSQI.TO
Advertiser: Kompania Piwowarska / Fundacja DOM w Łodzi
Watch the video
Campaign: OLX for International Women's Day
Media Agency: 180heartbeats + JUNG v MATT
Advertiser: OLX Poland
Watch the video
[NEW] Offline Digitalisation
Campaign: #nudoarluni
Media Agency: The Onion Media.
Advertiser: 5 to go
Watch the video
Campaign: Mobile Proximity Marketing for BP
Media Agency: Mindshare Poland
Advertiser: BP
Watch the video
[NEW] Product Innovation
Campaign: air dropping fries
Media Agency: proof.
Advertiser: skapto
Watch the video
Campaign: Relevance - relevant advertising for relevant audiences in a relevant context
Media Agency: JP/Politikens Hus
Advertiser: Relevance at JP/Politikens Hus
Watch the video
Search Advertising
Campaign: The Great Google Shopping Hack
Media Agency: Neodigital
Advertiser: Yalı Spor
Watch the video
Campaign: Search and beyond. Profitable growth of the market leader.
Media Agency: Adequate
Advertiser: Vola.ro
Watch the video
Social Media
Campaign: MasterChef GR 3 – Social Media Strategy
Media Agency: adjust.
Advertiser: MasterChef Greece 3 – Star Channel
Watch the video
Campaign: Bitwa o Neta
Media Agency: Artegence.
Advertiser: PKO Bank Polski
Watch the video
Campaign: #nudoarluni
Media Agency: The Onion Media.
Advertiser: 5 to go
Watch the video
Campaign: FANTA MUSIC IS OURS
Media Agency: CARAT MEDIA TURKEY
Advertiser: The Coca-Cola Company
Watch the video
Video Advertising
Campaign: Citi Simplicity Card - YouTube Director's Mix
Media Agency: Feno
Advertiser: Citi Handlowy
Watch the video
Campaign: Hey Mercedes! A Sedan
Media Agency: OMD Turkey
Advertiser: Mercedes
Watch the video
Campaign: sahibinden.com - secondhand
Media Agency: SEM and Kozmonot
Advertiser: sahibinden.com
Watch the video
Campaign: Mobile Flood
Media Agency: Tempo OMD Hellas
Advertiser: Tanweer - Aquaman movie
Watch the video
Campaign: Cheapanuary. Video campaign with hard evidence of impact.
Media Agency: Adequate
Advertiser: Vola.ro
Watch the video
Virtual and Augmented Reality
Campaign: Eti Puf Music Academy
Media Agency: milklab / MG Media
Advertiser: Eti Puf
Watch the video
Campaign: Hey Mercedes! A Sedan
Media Agency: OMD Turkey
Advertiser: Mercedes
Watch the video
RESEARCH AWARDS SHORTLIST
Cross-Media Measurement
Annalect and Hearts & Science: Digital Attribution - In a privacy driven world of walled gardens and crumbled cookies...
Together with their client Fitness World, Hearts and Science aimed to re-evaluate and understand the effectiveness of digital platforms, channels and formats – all the way down to the most granular line-item level, while making sure that effects from walled gardens, TV, seasonality and pricing were included in the attribution.
MeMo2: introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
THX. is a cross-media measurement platform that can register fully automated, passive and real-time exposure with online and offline media. In addition, THX. tracks real-time moving behavior of real consumers and includes a survey system enabling brands, agencies and publishers to correlate cross-media exposure to actual store visits and brand lift.
Watch the video
Data Effectiveness
MeMo² introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
Annalect and Hearts & Science: Digital Attribution - In a privacy driven world of walled gardens and crumbled cookies...
Digital Advertising and Marketing Industry Insights
OMD: Understanding how the next wave of disruptive AI technology can drive brand growth through higher value consumer experiences
OMD created a global multi-phased research study to track AI perceptions, adoption and usage as the technology evolves. With novel insights, the research shows that AI technologies are reaching the tipping point of mass adoption and that consumers are beginning to expect more than a novelty experience.
EDAA: Consumer perceptions and attitudes towards digital advertising post-GDPR
EDAA’s consumer research shows that consumers want relevant advertising, alongside user-friendly transparency and control mechanisms. Yet they have mixed levels of awareness and understanding of regulations and their rights.
Audience Measurement
Gemius and The Polish Internet Research: Uniting advertisers' and publishers' universes in one single-source research. From content and ad distribution planning to post-exposure verification.
In June 2019, media representatives in Poland formed a coalition named “Marketers for Better Researches”. Their main goal was to form mutually trusted recommendations regarding one measurement for TV, radio and Internet. Gemius developed the solution that meets the recommendations which is the first single-source cross-media measurement of TV, radio and Internet in Poland.
MeMo²: introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
Best Use of Research Budget
MeMo²: introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
EDAA: Consumer perceptions and attitudes towards digital advertising post-GDPR
Brand Advertising Effectiveness
Verizon Media: Measuring the Impact of Vodafone & Verizon Media ‘Find Unlimited’ AR Campaign
Vodafone wanted to celebrate the launch of the iPhone 11 with a campaign that would be as innovative as the new phone itself. The leading telecommunications giant wanted to position themselves as an innovator in the mobile-space amongst tech-savvy Londoners within the 25-54 age range. Verizon Media aimed to measure awareness and perceptions of Vodafone as well as the levels of engagement with the AR competition.
MeMo²: introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
Mediametrie: Viewability & Exposure duration: Which impact on ad effectiveness?
For digital campaigns, for a long time, the Click through rate appeared as a grail to evaluate the success of a campaign. When measuring the branding impact, solutions such as Digital Ad Ratings appeared as a game changer to measure the reach & frequency, and the ability to target the desired audience; Brand lift surveys (including Médiamétrie’s) managed to prove the effect of digital advertising. However, duration of exposure has rarely been treated in the right way for Digital. Médiamétrie//NetRatings in partnership with its partner Integral Ad Science set up an innovative research approach to assess for the first time the relation between duration of exposure and advertising effectiveness for digital campaigns.
Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour
EDAA: Consumer perceptions and attitudes towards digital advertising post-GDPR
Walnut Unlimited: The Real Time Truth of the Formula 1 Fan’s Digital Race Experience
To ensure F1’s owned digital platforms are the go-to channels for F1 fans, an innovative research programme to better understand the ‘true’ digital content attitudes and behaviours of their fans was employed. Walnut Unlimited employed a unique dual-method approach to understand the true digital media consumption of F1 fans during a typical race week, across all aspects of a Grand Prix: devices, platforms and digital channels.
Research Innovation
MeMo²: introducing THX. – The Future of Cross-media Analytics - MeMo2
Annalect and Hearts & Science: Digital Attribution - In a privacy driven world of walled gardens and crumbled cookies...
IAB Europe’s annual industry benchmark survey on the development of programmatic in Europe is now open for responses from across the ecosystem.
In this multi-market survey we ask about:
If you are involved in programmatic trading, media buying. selling or planning then please complete the survey – it won’t take any longer than 15 minutes and will provide valuable insight into current and future attitude levels. The results of last year’s survey were featured in many leading trade publications and presented at European events such as DMEXCO.
The survey will close on Friday 26th June. Please pass on the survey link to any relevant colleagues. Your response will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Sharon Marshall, Director EMEA Partnerships Solutions - Data Trust at Google, spoke at the IAB Europe Virtual Programmatic Day on 28 April 2020. Here, she follows up on some audience questions about the Privacy Sandbox and the plan to phase out support for third party cookies in Chrome.
The ecosystem we all operate in is changing, and has been for some time. Users expect more - for example in 2019 we saw on average 20m visits per day to the Google Account, which is where users can choose and adjust their privacy settings across all Google products. User demand for additional privacy has led to both increased regulation and stepped-up controls from browsers.
The industry is shifting to meet these higher expectations, impacting the ways data is collected and shared in the digital advertising industry today. These changes create new and important considerations for digital marketers and publishers.
So, we need to ensure the web can evolve to better respect user privacy and at the same time continue to support core business models that keep it working for everyone.
We aim to replace legacy practices with new privacy-preserving solutions, in collaboration with the wider industry. That means finding ways now to improve cookie security and choice for users, while we work together on building privacy-safe alternatives to cookies. I discussed the Privacy Sandbox at the IAB Europe's Virtual Programmatic Day recently and was asked some questions that I’ll discuss here.
Q How will these changes benefit the end user?
Today, the technologies that allow relevant ads, measure web traffic or prevent fraud can also be used for unwanted tracking across the web.
Primarily we’re talking about third-party cookies and covert tracking methods such as fingerprinting. While users can control cookie-based tracking through browser settings, for example, they can’t opt out of fingerprinting and often have no way to know it’s happening. And neither of these mechanisms is private by default.
We want to move the industry forward with an alternative that improves user privacy while still supporting an advertising-funded web which enables the development of diverse and rich content for end users to benefit from. These changes are focused on giving the user more transparency, choice and control.
Q Without third-party cookies, how will brands reach customers who have previously visited their sites but may not have purchased?
The proposals within the Privacy Sandbox are looking to replace legacy practices with privacy-preserving solutions, all while supporting key business use cases. Remarketing is one of the use cases in discussion within web standards forums as well as within the Privacy Sandbox proposals. We encourage the online advertising community to engage in conversations with the web standards community, either through forums within W3C or with your trade associations, such as IAB Europe, to ensure your use cases are being surfaced and discussed.
Q. Measuring online marketing activities has long been based on cookies - without this direct link to who saw your ads, what measurement solutions should brands, advertisers and publishers pivot to?
It’s too early to tell what the new solutions will be, though there are proposals in the Privacy Sandbox focused on click conversion measurement, reach measurement and frequency capping model calibration. The majority of proposals within the Privacy Sandbox are in the earliest idea phase, and are still being explored and discussed within the relevant W3C forums. Marketers should also think about implementing best practices and investing in privacy-focused long-term strategies built on respecting user choice and transparency, such as first party data solutions and relationships and investing in automation and machine learning to predict outcomes.
Q. Will post-view attribution be available as part of the sandbox?
The ability to support view-through conversions is one of the use cases being discussed as part of the proposals within the Privacy Sandbox. It’s important to remember that the set of proposals currently being discussed is a starting point. Proposals at this stage could evolve, be replaced with other proposals, and in many cases could fork into multiple proposals as new, related use cases emerge.
Q How do these changes impact first party data?
The changes only impact third party cookies - first party data is unaffected. First party data is particularly useful to marketers, because it’s unique to each business and gives clear insights into customers and the types of products or services they ultimately want. Leveraging this data also helps build better online experiences — providing value for customers — and resulting in more conversions and a higher return on investment.
Q Will there be multiple solutions for different browsers?
The goal is for these alternatives to be adopted more broadly across the web, including by other browsers. By engaging in the W3C forums, the entire web community is encouraged to provide feedback to help refine Chrome’s ideas, or propose their own. This is how consensus is achieved for new web standards - and how the best, most complete solutions are developed. That’s the outcome we want, and the reason Chrome is encouraging broad participation in this process. Don’t forget that you can also work with your trade associations - such as IAB Europe - to make sure your views are represented in W3C discussions.
Q Is contextual advertising the answer?
It certainly could be one answer, but it’s not the only solution. We are moving from a precision era to a predictive era of marketing. We know that personalisation is effective in serving users, advertisers and publishers but we need to think about how we do this in a privacy safe way. Many brands and publishers are finding smart ways to do more for the user, with less data. This means that advertising remains relevant, without infringing on user privacy.
As we approach the switch over from the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) v1.1 to TCF v2.0, we wanted to update you on the revised timeline and deadline which has taken into account the impact of COVID-19 on stakeholder’s operations.
In the April TCF Steering Group (SG) meeting, the group agreed to revising the timeline to accommodate requests from some group members who had asked for more flexibility due to the unexpected pressures of the pandemic. This was incorporated into the timeline.
In light of the continued pressures the pandemic is placing on publisher's operations and resources, at the SG meeting on the 13th May, a vote was taken to extend the deadline. The SG voted to extend technical support for TCF v1.1 beyond the previously announced date of 30 June to a new date of 15th August 2020. This is the final extension, beyond which support for the Global Vendor List (GVL) and other infrastructure necessary to implement v1.1 will be deprecated. You can read the full press release here.
Please see below the revised timeline that we hope will allow CMPs, Vendors and Publishers more time to successfully implement TCF v2.0. We remain committed to supporting all stakeholders during the switchover to TCF v2.0.
The IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) Steering Group votes to extend technical support for TCF v1.1 to 15th August 2020.
45 day extension granted due to Impact of COVID-19 on publisher operations.
Brussels, 14 May 2020 - The IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) Steering Group yesterday voted to extend technical support for TCF v1.1 beyond the previously announced date of 30 June to a new date of 15th August 2020. This is the final extension, beyond which support for the Global Vendor List (GVL) and other infrastructure necessary to implement v1.1 will be deprecated.
The extension comes on the heels of eight weeks of lockdown across European markets due to COVID-19 entailing furloughs and other disruption to engineering and legal resources. Prior to the vote, there was an extensive consultation with publishers who voiced their concerns that COVID-19 was delaying their ability to successfully switch over to TCF v2.0 by the 30th June. The TCF Steering Group consisting of 55 companies representing buy side, intermediaries and sell side, held a meeting on the 13th May to discuss the deadline and vote on an extension. The majority voted in favour of a new switchover deadline of 15th August 2020 - an extension of 45 days.
The extension of technical support for v1.1 does not impact companies’ ability to implement TCF v2.0 before the new cut-off date of 15th August 2020. Since IAB Europe in partnership with IAB Tech Lab launched the revised framework in August 2019, over 400 vendors have registered to implement TCF v2.0, with over 75% of them also declaring themselves operationally ready to read and act on TCF v2.0 strings. Thirty Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) have also been certified for TCF v2.0 and are currently testing the new User Interfaces (UI) with publishing partners. The confirmed scale and support of this effort highlights the industry's commitment to implement the enhanced functionality available within TCF v2.0 by 15th August.
“With the new and final 45-day prolongation, we are trying to thread the needle between the genuine duress companies are facing due to the pandemic, on the one hand, and the need to get broad, rapid uptake of a version of the TCF Framework that is superior in both user experience and data protection,” noted Thomas Mendrina, TCF Steering Group Chair & Senior Director, Xandr. “The acute regulatory scrutiny to which the industry is currently subject means that such a decision cannot be taken lightly and dictates that this be the final such extension.”
The extension means that Google’s formal implementation of TCF v2.0 will start on 15 August, rather than 30 June. The widespread adoption of TCF v2.0 includes many of the largest Vendors and CMPs in programmatic advertising, including Adobe, Axel Springer, Criteo, GroupM, Integral Ad Science, Mediamath, Oracle, OneTrust, The Ozone Project, The Rubicon Project, The Trade Desk, Quantcast, and Xandr, amongst many others. The full list of companies currently registered for TCF v2.0 can be found here.
Vendors and CMPs who have not yet registered for v2.0 and wish to register should visit https://iabeurope.eu/join-the-tcf/.
Sunsetting of TCF v1.1 consent strings by end September
The Steering Group also agreed to clarify to the market that v1.1 consent strings will no longer be valid after 30 September 2020. The period between now and 30 September may be used by CMPs to gradually replace v1.1 consents with v2.0 permissions based on both the consent and “legitimate interests” GDPR legal bases.
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For more information, please contact:
Helen Mussard, Marketing & Industry Strategy Director, IAB Europe (mussard@iabeurope.eu / +44 7399 919 594)
AUTHORED BY INDUSTRY LEADERS FROM ACROSS THE VALUE-CHAIN ENSURES GUIDE IS APPLICABLE FOR ENTIRE ECOSYSTEM
PLANNED REGULAR UPDATES WILL ENSURE GUIDE CONTINUES TO PROVIDE VALUE OVER THE TWO-YEAR TRANSITION PERIOD AND BEYOND
7th May 2020, Brussels: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its ‘Guide to the Post Third-Party Cookie Era’, to prepare brands, agencies, publishers and tech intermediaries for the much-anticipated post-third-party cookie advertising ecosystem.
The guide, which has been developed by experts from IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee, provides level-setting background into the current use of digital advertising cookies, the contributing factors to their depletion and an overview of the alternative solutions that are currently available.
Contributors to the Guide, including Adform, BBC Global News, CNN International, DoubleVerify, Foursquare, Omnicom Media Group (OMD), Oracle Data Cloud and Xandr, amongst others, have collaborated to provide a view from across the value-chain on the impact these changes will have in areas including digital advertising execution, measurement, and ad verification, along with tangible examples for how stakeholders can contribute towards the solutions industry will take forward.
Commenting on the industry’s need for an essential guide and the role that IAB Europe will play, Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe said “The depletion of third-party cookies will bring about fundamental changes to our industry and as the European voice for digital advertising and marketing, our role is to navigate these changes, educate the wider market and help our members contribute to the solutions. The Guide we are releasing today is an initial education piece and we will continue to work with our members to feed into industry initiatives such as IAB Tech Lab’s Project Rearc and W3C.”
Miles Pritchard, Managing Partner Data Management Solutions, OMD EMEA, who contributed to the Guide added “The deprecation of third-party cookies will create fundamental changes for how advertisers manage their campaigns in areas including audience targeting and retargeting, frequency capping and attribution. Ensuring OMD has a voice in these discussions is essential for both our advertising clients and the broader industry.”
These industry changes will also impact the publishing industry and contributor Emily Roberts, Programmatic Trading Manager, BBC Global News, added “The IAB Europe Guide makes clear that first-party data will be key to enable advertisers to understand their audiences, so publishers will need to reorganise their data collection and extension strategies to meet this need. By maintaining value in the open Internet, publishers are able to focus on their core business - creating premium and trusted content that will keep consumer's happy and deliver engaged audiences to advertisers.”
Chair of the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee and DoubleVerify Senior Director of Business Development, David Goddard, concluded “As an industry we should stop attempting to ‘solve’ for the loss of third-party cookies, but instead recognise that these changes are predicated on the direction of privacy laws globally. To realise the full potential of this natural evolution it is essential that all parts of the value-chain work together to provide solutions that work across the whole ecosystem and keeping users at the centre of this conversation to build trust. The IAB Europe Guide creates common understanding of the issues to facilitate this approach and the Programmatic Trading Committee will be updating the Guide on a regular basis to provide the latest information and guidance on market alternatives to third-party cookies.”
The Guide follows IAB Europe’s Virtual Programmatic Day which was held last week (28th April). Over 1,500 people attended the event virtually to hear from leaders on the developments and trends within Programmatic Advertising. A dedicated session was held to discuss the depletion of the third-party cookie with digital leaders sharing their thoughts on the impact and alternative solutions. You can watch the panel recording and access the audience Q&A here.
The IAB Europe ‘Guide to the Post Third-Party Cookie Era’ is available here.
In response to the ISBA Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency study released in the UK today, IAB Europe would like to confirm our commitment to maintaining transparency and quality in the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem. To help maintain such transparency, IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee created the Supply Chain Transparency Guide to help all stakeholders - from buy-side through to sell-side - to navigate which questions they should be asking and to whom. We are also extremely supportive of the initiatives and standards developed by national IABs across Europe, such as the IAB UK Gold Standard, IAB France Digital Ad Trust Initiative, and the IAB Tech Lab such as ads.txt and sellers.json which are designed to enhance transparency and best practice.
As noted by IAB UK in their response to the study, programmatic trading comprises a variety of players to ensure the trading between publishers and advertisers works and it is important to note the value each of these players adds to the transaction.
The release calls on the industry to work together to standardise log level data fields and definitions. In February 2020, IAB Europe created a working group within the Programmatic Trading Committee tasked to look at SSP Data best practices. The group includes SSPs, publishers and agencies, to understand the differences across these data fields and to harmonise the reporting fields. If any IAB Europe members would like to join this group, please contact Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett@iabeurope.eu.
Given the current circumstances regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, IAB Europe took the decision to postpone its flagship annual event, Interact, until 2021, and will instead be hosting a live virtual event on 3rd June - Interact Online!
Thanks to our event partners Adform, Google & OneTrust, this will be a free-to-attend virtual conference to enable the digital advertising and marketing industry to interact online! It’s never been more important to come together to help support, build and sustain our innovative industry. Expert speakers include senior executives from Coca-Cola, Zalando, Google, ProSieben, Facebook, PublicisMedia, RTL, GroupM, Verizon Media, OneTrust, OMD and Xandr. Check out the full speaker list here.
Join Brands, Publishers, Tech Companies and More...
The virtual event will kick off with IAB Europe’s Chief Economist Daniel Knapp presenting the AdEx Benchmark study - the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in Europe. Daniel will share IAB Europe’s predictions for 2020 investment and digital transformation.
Debate! Within the 2.5 hour virtual event, Interact Online will then feature a series of panel discussions and keynote speeches to discuss the accelerated change we are witnessing in our ecosystem, impacting investment, roles and responsibilities across our value chain. The event speakers from brands, agencies, publishers and tech companies will also address the impact that COVID-19 is having on our industry.
Interact! All guests will have the opportunity to Interact online through Q&As and polls during the event.
Connect! With our recent Virtual Programmatic Day attracting over 1500 attendees, we look forward to connecting the industry in the largest virtual event on 3rd June!
Register to join the virtual audience here.
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