The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) was created to help companies that serve, measure and manage digital and personalised advertising content comply with certain obligations of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy Directive (ePD) when processing personal data or accessing and/or storing information on a user’s device. It consists of Technical Specifications and Policies for the digital sector that assist companies to meet transparency and user choice requirements. In the first of this blog series, we seek to dispel some of the myths around what the TCF Policies actually require.
The TCF is not more restrictive than European privacy and data protection law : TCF v2.0 Policies have been carefully drafted by the TCF Working Groups in a way that balances the need for stability within the standard with updated interpretations of requirements directly drawn from the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive (2009/136/EC). The TCF instances take individual DPA guidance into account to the extent that synergies and common interpretations of EU-level requirements emerge, and refrain from adopting or updating Policies where such interpretations diverge. In this way, while it seeks to establish minimum requirements enabling participants to effectively collaborate across European borders, the TCF provides sufficient flexibility allowing it to be implemented in all European markets and adapt to national DPAs different guidelines where necessary.
TCF Policies require CMPs to implement a “reject all” button in their initial UI layer
Not true. According to TCF v2.0 Policies, the initial layer of TCF UIs must, at the very least, include a call to action for the user to express their consent (for example “Accept”, “Okay”, “Approve”, etc.) and a call to action for the user to customise their choices (for example “Advanced Settings”, “Customise Choices”, etc.). The TCF Policies most definitely do not require CMPs to include a call to action for the user to refuse consent on the initial layer of the UI, while not preventing CMPs from doing so if they wish, at the request of the Publisher, or if more stringent local requirements apply.
TCF Policies require CMPs to provide granular consent choices in their initial UI layer
Not true. Although TCF v2.0 Policies require the inclusion of the list of standard purposes or standard Stacks for which third party vendors are processing data in the initial layer of the UI, there is currently no requirement for CMPs to provide granular consent choices. CMPs remain, however, free to do so if they wish, at the request of the Publisher or if more stringent local requirements apply.
TCF Policies prohibit “scrolling” consent
Not true. TCF does not define the notion of "affirmative" / "unambiguous" in terms of gathering valid consent and hence does not have policies preventing organisations from implementing "scrolling consent", if they consider this practice acceptable. Note that a European definition of this concept appears to be emerging, since the EDPB has clearly flagged that it considers this illegal in the most recent update to its Guidelines on Consent in May 2020 (see para. 86) and that DPAs which have previously considered this practice acceptable will likely align their approach with the EDPB in the near future.
Please visit https://iabeurope.eu/tcf-2-0/ for information on TCF v2.0 Policies, Technical Specifications, Implementation Guidelines, FAQ and more.
For more information, please contact Filip Sedefov, Director, Legal at IAB Europe (sedefov@iabeurope.eu) and Ninon Vagner, Privacy & Compliance Manager at IAB Europe (vagner@iabeurope.eu).
Following Apple’s announcement that it has decided to maintain IDFA and extend its influence on the AppStore by limiting the action and management of application publishers, IAB Europe in partnership with the following associations listed below, sent a letter to Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. This letter which can be seen here alerts Apple in particular to the potential economic and competitive risks of such a decision.
16 associations who co-signed letter to Apple:
For more information or any press enquires please contact Helen Mussard, Marketing & Industry Strategy Director, IAB Europe - mussard@iabeurope.eu
5 Things We Learnt From The Great Digital Debate with Tom Kershaw (CTO, Magnite) and Daniel Knapp (Chief Economist, IAB Europe)
On 16th June, IAB Europe hosted it's first Great Digital Debate with Magnite. Looking past COVID-19, Daniel Knapp, Chief Economist at IAB Europe and Tom Kershaw, Chief Technology Officer at Magnite joined us for a great debate that looked at how the digital advertising world will most likely evolve, post-pandemic. It was an eye-opening discussion, in which two of the brightest minds in the industry brought their respective technical and economic expertise to the table.
We’ve pulled five key takeaways from the discussion. For greater context, you can also watch the full debate here.
TOM KERSHAW: The last few months have been an accelerant of consumer behaviour and of programmatic.
Tom proposed this idea at the start of the debate, attributing the accelerated migration to data-driven models to more eyeballs on CTV and OTT.
Daniel agreed, highlighting that it is important to step back from COVID-19 to look at the trend more holistically. “Advertising overall is driven by cyclical and structural factors. There is the hope that the structural changes in consumption will accelerate the move towards programmatic. However, if we look at previous recessions, we need to be careful not to overestimate the pace of this cyclical change - consumer change in particular is extremely fickle and doesn’t really change long term that quickly. It’s important to look at all the structural issues that Tom has outlined: that programmatic - and the change that we’re seeing - is embedded in much broader changes about how advertisers think about media and think of media buying.” Tom suggested this accelerated behaviour was “also exposing holes and fissures that have needed to be fixed for a long time - and top of mind is the identity model.”
TOM KERSHAW: The magnitude of the identity problem is impossible to overstate.
We’re six months into the cookie-apocalypse and nothing’s changed in terms of really transforming this at scale, but it requires buyers to consume information in a different way and it requires us to retool the fundamental data plumbing in our industry to get there. But in an internet where in order to get content you have to give up PII - that’s not the internet we built and that’s not the internet we’re moving towards. We
’re moving towards an internet that is by default anonymous and the user has the power and choice to select what they want and care about.
Daniel also agreed that identity was important, but suggested we might be over obsessing with identity: “OOH, TV have other ways of understanding and trading audiences - there’s more of a reference to geo-location clusters, household reference to television. We - coming from a pure digital world - can actually learn a lot from traditional media: Does user targeting or addressability necessarily always need to be on an individual basis - and if we want to have a programmatic ecosystem that goes across all different media, shouldn’t we take more of these aggregated concepts and then translate them into the digital world?”
DANIEL KNAPP: Those who own the models and means of interpretation will have a market edge. Who has the power of interpretation?
Daniel hypothesised that on top of investments and innovations and data, we need to think about how, as disparate players in the ecosystem, we can create an infrastructure for interpretation; how can that be different from what large platforms are doing with different standards. That could be a really powerful way to go forward and separate oneself from what the walled gardens are doing.
Tom countered that the recurring theme of ‘the walled gardens are coming and we’re all doomed’ hasn’t happened: “We’ve survived as an independent open internet and we’re continuing to survive and thrive and the key to that is going to be federation, co-operation. If you want to have an open internet with independent publishers that are strong, innovating and growing, they have to be able to cooperate to get to the scale of a large walled garden. That is something that we have finally figured out as an industry - to get the scale, coverage, and consistency of operations that are necessary to compete with the walled gardens.
DANIEL KNAPP on collaboration and cooperation: There’s a huge gap between promise and practice.
Daniel stated that “we realise what we’ve got to do, we realise it’s urgent, we realise the clock is ticking, but not much has really happened. The response for stronger collaboration and standards was quite muted - and given the regulatory pressures the industry finds itself under - we as a service provider need to be bolder about collaboration and not see enemies everywhere.“
Tom agreed, but said one can make an argument both ways for progress or lack thereof: “Given where we were a few years ago, the fact that now we’re trying to create a common view of how the industry works is progress. But it’s ludicrous how we have different names for auctions, we don’t have a common identifier for an impression across the industry - so yes we’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go.”
TOM KERSHAW: Programmatic is becoming the anchor for all types of digital communication.
As highlighted in both of their theses, Tom heralded the shift of technology away from the ad server and static configurations to machine learning and automation; the entire ecosystem is moving to a common model. Programmatic’s integral role in digital advertising’s future seemingly is an inevitability, however Tom was quick to highlight that we’re not there yet and now is not the time for complacency: “You’re not going to be a mature industry that’s the centrepiece of how monetisation occurs if you can’t solve basic problems of transparency, reporting, and how your systems work. If you can’t explain how your systems work - you shouldn’t be here.”
Daniel agreed, but also advocated for a industry-wide shift in perception: “’ve never seen an industry that talks so much about innovation, but is inherently so conservative. We’re not really utilising the potential of digital feedback channels of programmatic but purely seeing it as an infrastructure or a new vessel which we pour the old stuff in. It’s a mistake to just see technology as a pure delivery mechanism - it needs to be much more deeply connected to the creative potentials that are coming. That’s a huge area that the industry doesn’t talk too much about, probably because it’s complex, probably because advertisers aren’t there. But when it comes to where future value is generated in this industry, beyond identity, beyond attribution, I see it primarily there - not thinking about programmatic as an infrastructure, but a different way of doing things from both a creative and a business perspective.”
Digital Video Key Channel for Brand Building and Driving Sales
Addressable and Connected TV earmarked as key drivers for future video investment
2nd July 2020, Brussels, Belgium: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, announced today the results of its annual Attitudes to Digital Video Advertising research. The study found that nearly 60% of advertisers are investing in digital video to build their brand or gain competitive advantage whilst 40% of agencies invest to tell brand stories.
Since 2016, the study has provided insight into the growth and adoption of digital video advertising across Europe, the ways in which video is being traded on both the buy-side and sell-side, and what the future holds. IAB Europe used an online survey with the help of the European national IAB network to ensure a representative sample across European markets. The survey received approximately 300 respondents between March and April 2020.
A key finding of the study is that advertisers not only see digital video as a secondary touchpoint to TV but also to build their brand and drive sales. Whilst both agencies and publishers said that they rely on this secondary touchpoint as a means to achieve reach and scale.
Mobile continues to drive brand spend; advertisers are increasing their spend in mobile video with 75% of advertisers now investing more than 41% of their digital video budgets in mobile compared to 50% of advertisers in 2018/19. Outstream investments are increasing too; 45% of advertisers allocated more than 21% of their video budgets to outstream compared to 36% in 2018/19.
The results also highlight a continued trend towards cross-media planning. In 2020, media agencies stated that 86% of campaigns have at least some aspect of cross-media planning compared to 81.5% in 2019. However, cross-screen measurement is still cited as the top barrier to investment in digital video by buyers hindering further cross-media investment and planning.
Future video advertising opportunities lie in addressable and connected TV viewing with just over 54% of advertisers and 99% of agencies citing addressable TV or connected TV as key digital video growth areas for the next 12 months. Two thirds of publishers also agreed that the key area of digital video growth will be connected TV advertising. To provide more education and insight into this emerging new channel, IAB Europe recently released a Connected TV Guide to help planners and buyers of media, across both linear and digital backgrounds, navigate the opportunities that this new living room platform creates for marketers.
Phil Sumner, VP Insights Northern Europe, Teads commented: “The Attitudes to Digital video report once again highlights how digital video has become an essential brand and sales building vehicle. Unsurprisingly, mobile continues to drive digital video forward as the user experience and level of creativity available continues to flourish. Formats such as outstream now form an essential part of advertisers’ creative arsenal. Increased levels of cross media planning reflect its increased importance but once again, cross screen measurement is highlighted as a major miss and barrier to growth."
Emma Newman, CRO EMEA at PubMatic added: “It’s exciting to see the strong connected TV growth highlighted in the study. Without question, OTT is ripe for innovation and we expect to see programmatic gain ground in the coming years. Programmatic technology will enable publishers to respond to real time changes in viewer behavior and increases in inventory availability, while providing advertisers increased scale and flexible, transparent, automated buying models. All while delivering a great, TV-like experience for viewers.”
Fal Patel, Head of Business Development, Nielsen said: “It is interesting to see that Digital Video Advertising continues to mean a different marketing opportunity for Advertisers compared to Publishers and Agencies and this disparity can lead to confusion on how you would measure the effectiveness of a digital video campaign. What is absolutely critical for the industry is to align on a single metric which measures digital video, consistently across publishers and devices to future proof this media channel.”
The Attitudes to Digital Video Advertising Report and Infographic can be accessed here which includes further insight into the digital video advertising market in Europe.
