Ryan Martin was elected as the Chair of the Brand Advertising Committee on 17th February at the first quarterly meeting of 2021. Replacing Clementina Piazza (Automation Lead, Spotify), Ryan was elected to lead the committee’s work to drive brand investment into digital by providing Brand Advertisers with a reliable and trusted Brand Advertising Framework for converging digital and traditional media environment. The Framework is composed of a set of initiatives designed to be compatible with global programmes.
Commenting on his newly appointed role and vision for the committee, Ryan said “Having worked in media since graduating, I believe we are entering a really exciting and pivotal moment for the digital advertising and marketing industry. This means that our role, as the IAB Europe Brand Advertising Committee members, will become more important than ever before. In my role at TikTok, we are all about learning and developing our practices to build our credibility and relationships. Not just with consumers and advertisers but the ecosystem too. We want to understand how we can develop brand advertising for the better. We don’t want to do things just because it’s how they've always been done, we want to help make them better and we can only do that with the support of the ecosystem. As a committee, I believe we can collaborate to drive the industry forward.”
The Brand Advertising Committee is a multi-stakeholder group, which aims to provide valuable education and guidance to the wider community.
For any IAB Europe Members who would like to get involved in the committee, please contact Lauren Wakefield - wakefield@iabeurope.eu or Helen Mussard - mussard@iabeurope.eu
About Ryan Martin, Global Business Marketing - Program Manager, TikTok
Ryan joined the industry on the agency side as a press planner and buyer and fell in love with the traditional way of working, with big media brands and titles and essentially delivering reach for brands. As the industry developed his path took him into more and more digital roles. He’s always felt his best work included multiple players from across the media landscape, working in harmony to deliver results for clients.
He joined TikTok two years ago and has helped build it into the business it is today. To work at a business with creativity at the heart makes coming to work every day for him is a joy and to showcase unparalleled opportunities to brands is a pleasure. TikTok is a platform where businesses can feel safe and confident with their brand and he has worked on multiple initiatives to prove this, such as its recent IAB UK Gold Standard 2.0 accreditation. As a leader in product, partnerships, and creative innovation he’s excited about the impact he and TikTok can have on the IAB Brand Advertising Committee.
The IAB Europe MIXX & Research Awards Are Now Open!
The early bird deadline is Friday 12th March. The final deadline is Friday 16th April. See below on how you can enter!
The MIXX Awards Europe and the IAB Europe Research Awards are accepting entries from talented and hard-working teams that have created some of the best digital campaigns and research projects in Europe. The awards offer a unique opportunity to gain pan-European exposure in front of industry leaders. Your work will be reviewed by a jury of experts from across the digital advertising and research industry who dedicate hours of their time to reviewing and discussing all entries. Winners of the awards are renowned in the industry for delivering some of the best impactful and innovative work that Europe has ever seen!
The winners will be announced at IAB Europe's flagship event 'Interact' which will be held virtually on 25th -27th May! Last year over 1000 people tuned in to watch the winners being announced.
Categories
Both awards feature categories to showcase the very best creative campaigns and research projects from across Europe. As well as these categories, we also have three categories to reward and recognise the best people in our industry:
MIXX Awards Europe Categories
Brand Advertising Campaign, Direct Response / Lead Generation Campaign, Video Advertising, Social Media, Search Advertising, Branded Content, Native Advertising, Virtual and Augmented Reality or other New Technologies, Campaign Effectiveness, Integrated Advertising, Effective Use of Data, Games & E-Sports, Influencer Marketing, Non-profit / Corporate Social Responsibility, Digital Audio Advertising, Digital OOH Advertising, Offline Digitalisation, Product Innovation, CTV advertising campaign (NEW) Digital Strategy Person of the Year, Digital Creative Person of the Year.
Research Awards Categories
Brand Advertising Effectiveness, Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour, Cross-Media Measurement, Digital Advertising Formats, Research Innovation, Audience Measurement, Best Use of Research Budget, Data Effectiveness, Digital Advertising and Marketing Industry Insights, Digital Researcher of the Year.
Entry Checklist
We have created a checklist to help you make sure your entry is on track for the early bird deadline of Friday 12th March. Consider entering your work into multiple categories to get maximum visibility for your project or campaign. There is a discounted rate for entering additional categories!
✔ Select the categories you want to enter
Visit the Awards site to review all the different categories you can enter.
✔ Download the entry notes
Our entry notes contain all the rules and entry info you need for entering the awards, including the judging criteria. Please see below to access the entry notes:
✔ Plan your time
Make sure you have enough time to draft your submissions and get them reviewed before you submit them.
✔ Review the 2020 winning entries
Why not have a look at some of our winners from last year to inspire your entry? Click here to see the 2020 winners.
✔ Ask the organisers
Get in touch with us via email if you have any questions:
Key Dates
Entry Links - Ready to be recognised?
Enter now to inspire others, reward your team and gain pan-European recognition for your digital advertising campaigns or research projects.
ENTER THE MIXX AWARDS EUROPE HERE
ENTER THE MIXX AWARDS EUROPE DIGITAL STRATEGY / CREATIVITY PERSON OF THE YEAR HERE
ENTER THE RESEARCH AWARDS HERE
ENTER THE RESEARCH AWARDS DIGITAL RESEARCHER OF THE YEAR HERE
In this week's member guest post, we are delighted to welcome Emmanuel Josserand, Snr Dir. Agency, Brand and Industry Relations for FreeWheel and Lead for the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video.
As well as being a very valued member of IAB Europe's industry committees, Emmanuel oversees engagement with media agencies, brands and industry bodies at FreeWheel – driving alignment between the buy-side and sell-side requirements in the premium TV advertising ecosystem. In this capacity, Emmanuel leads the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video Europe, bringing together broadcasters, telco- and pay TV operators. He also heads up Comcast Advertising's Agency Leadership Council in Europe, a forum of buy-side television and digital experts - including senior executives across the major and independent agencies - to exchange ideas, thought leadership and to advance the TV industry as a whole.
Prior to joining Freewheel in 2015, Emmanuel held senior positions at global technology providers such as Civolution (today 4C Insights/Kinetiq), where he was in charge of the company’s global brand building, and ArcSoft Europe, where he supported business development through strategic partnerships and major product launches.
Will cross-media measurement level the playing field?
You can’t manage what you can’t measure – as the saying goes – so with efficient campaign management more crucial to advertisers than ever before, effective ad measurement solutions are critical to drive performance.
As the advertising landscape becomes ever more complex, there are virtually endless opportunities for ad messaging to reach a consumer via different channels, platforms and devices. Without robust measurement solutions to accurately determine de-duplicated reach, there is a risk of consumers being bombarded with the same ad from multiple directions, which results not only in wasted spend but also a poor user experience. Measurement continues to be one of the most critical issues for the buy-side. In a recent exclusive FreeWheel study conducted by Co-lab Consulting2, measurement was seen as the first inhibitor of advanced TV growth for advertisers and agencies in Europe (see Fig1).
Fig 1: Inhibitors to Advanced TV spend growth, FreeWheel survey, conducted by Co-Lab consulting, October 2020
With cross-media measurement proving a thorny issue, the whole media ecosystem is looking for workable solutions and buyers are now leading the debate. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) released an advertiser-centric framework for cross-media measurement planning and reporting, with a set of global principles that could be adapted for local implementation. The progressive framework is intended as a catalyst for local development of a new wave of cross-media measurement solutions, and it is accompanied by a technical design proposal which was developed alongside digital platforms. It is currently being tested in various regions, with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) driving testing in the US and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) validating the framework in the UK through Project Origin.
There are various ad measurement solutions already in place or under development, most notably NBCUniversal and Sky’s CFlight, which is designed to determine total campaign reach across linear TV and video-on-demand (VOD). Let’s take a look at: what this means; some of the ways cross-media measurement solutions will need to evolve over the coming months; and how these ties into the principles of the WFA framework.
Alignment with local standards
First, it is worth highlighting that the WFA framework is intended to complement, rather than replace, existing measurement tools and standards, such as IPA Touchpoints, BARB, UKOM and the various Joint Industry Currencies (JICs). Any cross-media measurement solutions will need to maintain the rigorous local standards currently applied to linear TV, such as the BARB gold standard in the UK. It is essential, as indicated, that the WFA proposal recognises that measurement needs local governance to work alongside global components that will drive scale and consistency.
A collaborative approach
The new TV ecosystem is at the crossroads between linear and digital. It is on-demand, connected and addressable, and offers incredible opportunities for advertisers to buy specific audiences across a single and integrated platform. Bringing all screens together will help advertisers and agencies achieve a greater understanding of their audiences. However, it implies a major shift in planning, transacting and reporting, with a common framework for holistic campaign measurement across all channels, platforms and devices.
Preparing for this currency change will require a collaborative approach across the entire industry, with competitors compelled to work together to find common ground. Industry alliances are already being created, and UK broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 4 joining CFlight to ensure a common principles and standards, is a good example of that. The WFA framework will require a comprehensive solution, that encompasses TV (in all its forms BVOD, CTV/OTT, AVOD…) and digital and is not limited to video, so close collaboration between all parties is necessary to bring this about. The accompanying proposal also suggests any aspects of solutions that require bespoke technology should be open source, so advertisers can easily access their own data and reports.
Independent verification
For any measurement solution to be neutral, with fair and objective metrics – as required by the framework – it needs to be independently verified by a trusted third party. This verification is something TV measurement JICs across Europe, including the CFlight measurement solution, have always adhered to, to ensure integrity of the data and insights. Governance is key and some form of a JIC bringing together TV and online platforms is critical for the future of video measurement and to provide a common framework. Nobody should be marking their own homework.
There are many different forms of measurement used for a variety of needs. Different media are measured differently and the industry, and advertisers in particulars, have to get used to live with an array of measurement solutions. The key is to bring cohesion between the various systems.
Cross-media measurement should not be seen as just about the value of media, but rather about efficiency. It could create a level playing field for different measurements – should all parties adhere to the same rules - enabling advertisers to clearly understand the role and reach of each media platforms and the performance against set objectives. For media owners it is about demonstrating the audience they reach and the context in which they reach that audience.
By putting advertiser needs firmly at the heart of any measurement solutions being developed, the framework set out by the WFA merits the full support of the whole industry. Implementation of the framework will enable advertisers to effectively manage campaigns and understand where best to invest budgets, and will eliminate ad bombardment and excessive frequency, ultimately restoring consumer trust in advertising.
The demise of third-party cookies has changed the outlook for programmatic advertising. Bringing both challenges and opportunities with it. In our member guest post, we caught up with Paul Farrow, Manager, Solutions Consulting at Xandr to get his thoughts on the evolving landscape of programmatic advertising and to see where he sees it going from here.
As Manager, Solutions Consulting at Xandr, Dr Paul Farrow supports major buyers and sellers in Central Europe to foster their programmatic partnerships and grow their businesses. Since 2018 one of his main goals has been to ensure that Publishers understand and correctly implement the TCF framework, thereby maintaining privacy standards whilst strengthening the advertising ecosystem.
As a biologist, I am accustomed to the concept of evolution. But even I have been astonished by the level of disruption and development in the world of programmatic advertising since joining the industry just over two years ago.
The third-party cookie is likely to disappear in the next couple of years, as browsers continue to introduce and expand controls around how and in what form information about their users can be made available. This will have, and is already having, a profound effect.
Privacy frameworks, too, are beginning to appear across the globe. The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) has already been successfully implemented across Europe, and we are now beginning to see similar solutions in Canada, Thailand, and Brazil on the horizon (among others). These frameworks all work to enable and facilitate interoperability and accountability across the world-wide-web.
These tools and changes will help publishers and advertisers in their mission to ensure the privacy of their customers at every stage of their web journey, and we are all excited about the developments browsers are now making to their logic, as well as the frameworks which many of our clients at Xandr have worked incredibly hard to implement, as we enter this new age.
At Xandr, we are working hard to ensure that our processes - and the processes of our partners - react and adapt to meet the challenges of the new environment and to make sure the privacy demands of our clients are always front and center.
Simple Ads
We know that the removal of the third-party cookie and an increase in privacy frameworks will change the way clients interact with their audiences. That's why we are building out a suite of products to enhance our capabilities around the following use-cases:
This suite of products will be known collectively as Simple Ads and will address some of the challenges faced in a privacy-first ecosystem.
ID-less audiences
For example, Xandr will continue to process and market impressions that do not contain cookies or device IDs. We recognise that every impression has value, and as we move into the new privacy-first era, publishers should not be penalised for putting the privacy of their users first, but rewarded for doing so.
We also know that, from a buy-side perspective, this new landscape offers opportunities to adopt other methods of reaching the same, or similar, audiences. Contextual and viewability addressing remain perfectly good options for advertisers to address their customers, and the careful curation of marketplaces is on the rise.
Privacy
On the other hand, publishers are aware that they must pay closer attention to what is happening on their properties. They know that they are the gatekeepers between their users and their partners, and they have a responsibility to control the privacy of every pixel. It is not enough to simply implement a Consent Management Platform (CMP); publishers want to know which of their partners are setting third-party cookies and - in the best case - help those partners act in accordance with legislation. With this in mind, Xandr is building out controls (as part of Simple Ads) that will allow publishers to choose exactly how restrictive to be and at what level to enforce the privacy laws of their land.
Universal Identifiers
In the past five years, we have seen an explosion of Identity solutions hit the market. At first, these identifiers were based primarily on third-party cookies and the creation of cross-party user graphs. However, reliance upon cookies is looking increasingly ill-advised, and as we edge closer to the loss of third-party cookies, the emergence of identifiers based on user logins (NetID, LiveRamp) as well as the creation of identity consortiums and initiatives (Unified ID 2.0, Project Rearc) are becoming increasingly important.
Privacy Sandbox
Also in development is the Privacy Sandbox, whose mission is to “Create a thriving web ecosystem that is respectful of users and private by default.” At present, the Privacy Sandbox is a collection of ideas (some easier to imagine than others) revolving around the removal of access to personal data for ad tech and other companies. It is unclear which of these ideas will be implemented, less so the timeline of their implementation. But over the next couple of years, browsers will develop in a direction that places them as the gatekeepers to our information.
What now?
Juggling these complementary and contradictory considerations is the principal challenge for ad tech companies moving into the privacy-first generation. And given the finite resources each company has at its disposal, as well as the fierce market competition, the stakes could not be higher.
But as the industry focuses on individual solutions, we must realise that the creation of a private internet cannot obstruct the requirements of an open internet and that cross-collaboration and communication are more important than they have ever been if we are to protect the user and the publisher within the same system.
Finding the right balance is key. But having watched the successful adoption and implementation of the TCF across Europe, and as I listen to the results coming from, for example, W3C and Project Rearc, I am optimistic about our ability to work together, and I am sure this industry will evolve into something far more fit for purpose in the coming months and years.
IAB Europe would like to share the open letter that IAB Poland has sent to all members today. The letter is a call for members to act together to oppose the proposed tax on advertising revenues. In protest against the proposed media advertising tax, many private media outlets in Poland went off the air yesterday, running slogans such as “This used to be your favourite programme. The Polish government says the “solidarity” tax would raise money to bolster state finances badly strained by the coronavirus pandemic, but 45 media companies signed a letter that said they already pay many taxes and that the advertising tax could push some to collapse. In the letter to the authorities ahead of the blackout, dozens of private media companies also said that they believed "such drastic action is necessary because without free media there is no free choice, and without free choice, there is no freedom".
The tax threatens media independence and diversity. It will also financially impact many privately-owned Polish media outlets, which depend on advertising for their financing. IAB Europe stands with IAB Poland and The European Commission, who have also expressed concern over media freedom in Poland.
OPEN LETTER. Warsaw, February 11, 2021 - Appeal to IAB Polska member companies on tax on advertising revenues
Ladies and gentlemen,
We sympathize with the media's protest under the slogan "media without choice" because the use of an epidemic as an excuse to introduce another, exceptionally severe and permanent tax, which will not be eliminated with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. We therefore raise our strong opposition to the proposed tax and appeal for unity and mobilization of all IAB Polska member companies in this difficult industry moment.
We call for the floor to be heard in open consultations by the Ministry of Finance. We are currently working on our position and we will share it with you on February 15.
Introducing an additional burden, mildly and confusingly called "solidarity contribution", on advertising revenue is another killer blow to the media that has suffered severe
losses caused by the pandemic crisis. Be warned that the new tax will hit all entrepreneurs across the advertising chain. It may seem that it will not apply to everyone, but we are concerned that the deepening, unequal treatment of all entrepreneurs is only a matter of time.
The so-called "Advertising tax" places another financial burden for the entire media ecosystem. For nearly a year now, the coronavirus has suffocated all sectors, and the new tax tightens the loops around entrepreneurs' necks even tighter. Like a chain reaction we could see many businesses close. We will all lose in the end because the cost of the tax will be passed on to each family in Poland. The economic downturn and worries about jobs is another financial burden for each and every one of us.
Only by acting together can we put pressure on the government to pull back the procedure of the bill. Industry solidarity is the only chance to change the unfair regulations.
Thank you,
Włodzimierz Schmidt,
President of the Management Board of IAB Polska
10 February 2021, Brussels, Belgium — Today, the EU Member States agreed on a negotiating mandate for the ePrivacy Regulation proposal, which enables the Council to start discussions with the European Parliament on the terms of the final text. The agreement constitutes a major milestone toward getting an updated regulation in place. IAB Europe welcomes this progress, and the prospect of a productive trilogue negotiation over the coming months.
Digital advertising remains the major revenue stream financing Europe’s free and diverse press and media. It accounts for 81% of media digital revenues in the Union, enabling citizens to access trusted and high-quality content and services.
A productive and successful trilogue phase should yield a final text that provides strong privacy protections and enables media and other online content and services to continue to rely on an advertising revenue stream. In its first reading of the proposal, completed in 2017, the European Parliament proposed banning conditional access in a way that would grant users a right in law to consume all media and other website content for free, in effect expropriating publishers’ work. It should be self-evident that such an approach would undermine the sustainability of media and other services that consumers use every day, leading to a race to the bottom in relation to information quality and more content and services being moved behind paywalls adding to unhealthy polarisation between income groups. IAB Europe hopes that the new Parliament will take a more balanced approach that builds on the strong foundation provided by the GDPR.
As the EU institutions prepare for the trilogues, IAB Europe would respectfully highlight the need to take good account of both the GDPR and the large body of interpretative guidance and case law that has emerged since that Regulation entered into force in 2018. It is dismaying to see the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) suggesting a full ban on targeted advertising to address the problem of data being used for advertising purposes despite having been collected for non-advertising purposes. Such behaviour is already demonstrably illegal under existing law. Similarly, the EDPS call for restrictions on what data may be processed for targeted ads or disclosed to advertisers or third parties is difficult to understand, since such restrictions already exist in the GDPR, where e.g. sensitive category data require a specific legal basis that the most widely-used legal compliance standard in the industry, the Transparency & Consent Framework, does not enable.
For more information, please contact:
Greg Mroczkowski, Director, Public Policy – mroczkowski@iabeurope.eu
Helen Mussard, Chief Marketing Officer, IAB Europe – mussard@iabeurope.eu
To protect the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) and ensure its success for the whole industry, IAB Europe seeks to launch a first iteration of a Vendor Compliance Programme to audit the live installations of Vendors’ technologies integrated on Publishers’ properties and assess their compliance with the TCF policy.
To help run the Vendor Compliance programme, IAB Europe is launching a Request for Proposal to obtain the services of an independent contractor to perform technical auditing of Vendors on Publisher properties by accessing and crawling websites implementing a TCF CMP and, where the vendor is integrated, to scan tags and analyse URL, headers, postdata, and cookies of https requests.
If you would like to receive the Request for Proposal, please email tcf.compliance@iabeurope.eu.
75 Percent of Industry Respondents Believe Alternatives to Third-Party Cookies are Very Important or Critical But 40 Percent Feel Their Company is Not Fully Prepared
4th February 2021, Brussels: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising and marketing ecosystem, has today released its comprehensively updated ‘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.
To understand how involved stakeholders were with the different initiatives and how prepared they are for the new era, IAB Europe ran an industry poll in Q4 2020. Respondents were asked what new opportunities and challenges they foresaw, and how prepared they are for these changes. They were also asked about the impact they think it will have on targeting, measurement, verification and overall investment. Over 100 industry professionals completed the poll and topline findings showed:
The guide, which has been developed by experts from IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee, updates the first edition in May 2020. It provides the latest insights into the many alternative solutions that are being developed to replace third-party cookies when they are depleted in 2022, including context, identity, the use of telco data and the Google Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) initiative. It is evident that a lot of innovation continues to take place around identity and the industry will not end up with one final solution. As a result, the Guide will help industry prepare to test, learn and collaborate on further developments throughout 2021.
Commenting on this latest work, Helen Mussard, CMO, IAB Europe said “With less than 12 months to go until third-party cookies are fully deprecated, now is the time for every company within the digital advertising ecosystem to work together to deliver the solutions that are outlined in the IAB Europe Guide. As the European voice for digital advertising and marketing, our role is to help our members navigate these changes and ensure the €23bn European programmatic industry can continue to innovate and thrive in this new era.”
Explaining the reasons for supporting this initiative, contributors highlighted the value the guide will provide as brands, agencies and publishers make strategic decisions about how to manage identity. A new contributor this year is the privacy-first identity and audience response platform Novatiq. Their Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Tanya Field, commented “It is clear that a number of alternative solutions to identity are being developed, but understanding the differences and their relative merits can be a challenge. The IAB Europe Guide gives space to each opportunity and demonstrates that there won’t be one outright market solution, but a range that meet differing market needs.”
Alex Berger, Senior Marketing Director, Buy-side Products, Adform, continued “When the initial news hit about the pending death of the third-party cookie, it understandably sent shockwaves across the industry. The big challenge has been the complexity of the technology, and making sense of the massive amounts of contradictory information out there. This guide serves as a great starting point for those eager to get the tools in place to ask the right questions when choosing which solutions to back in the coming months.” This was echoed by Julien Delhommeau, Solutions Consulting Director Southern Europe, Xandr who commented “It is incumbent on technology platforms to develop a range of technical solutions, and we see the updated IAB guide as an educational tool for buyers and sellers to come to us with an informed, strategic articulation of their identity needs and goals".
Valbona Gjini, Marketing Director, ID5 held a similar view, stating “We are delighted to have contributed to the IAB Europe’s Guide to the Post Third Party Cookie Era. Collaboration and knowledge sharing is what will allow us to succeed in the transition to a cookie-less future. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenge that we are faced with. Learning and testing different privacy-compliant cookie-less approaches is crucial to understand what brings more benefits to publishers, advertisers and consumers.”
Chris Keenan, Regional VP Business Development, MediaMath concluded “IAB Europe has an unparalleled insight into the needs and concerns of all parties in the value chain and this guide is the most comprehensive overview of the industry available. We will continue to work with the IAB and other participants to support these critical developments which are essential to future-proof our industry.”
The 14-000 word Guide provides a comprehensive deep-dive into the following themes:
Commenting on the depth of knowledge contained within the Guide, Chair of the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee and DoubleVerify Senior Director of Business Development, David Goddard, said “Consumer privacy and respect in advertising is paramount. Recent moves to ensure privacy through corporate and government initiatives – including the deprecation of third-party cookies – means that advertisers need new tools and resources to ensure efficient and effective campaign measurement and targeting. This Guide – a collective effort of the IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee – includes input from companies across the digital ad ecosystem and is meant to provide an understanding of where we are now, and what options we have to move forward. This collaborative effort exemplifies how players across the value chain can and should work together to meet the needs of advertisers and consumers alike – fostering a healthy, well-lit ad ecosystem. Today’s updated Guide contains the most up-to-date summary of the identity market today, however we know this space is constantly innovating and changing. As a result, we will continue to share the latest learnings and developments through further updates to the guide..”
IAB Europe will be hosting a webinar featuring contributors to the Guide on 23rd February, 2021 at 3pm GMT, to expand further on the themes covered. This will be a free industry event and registration is available here: Webinar Registration - Zoom
The IAB Europe ‘Guide to the Post-Third-Party Cookie Era’ is available here
