Hear from some of our members about why they think membership of IAB Europe is valuable and important for the development of the digital advertising and marketing industry.
Jade Grant, Solutions Consultant, IPONWEB
Pietro Acanfora, Global Platform Consultant, Adform
Oliver Gertz, Managing Director, Interaction EMEA, MediaCom
Lisa Kalyuzhny, Senior Director, Advertiser Solutions EMEA, PubMatic
Ben Geach, Senior Director, Global Product Strategy, Oracle Data Cloud
Tom Fryett, Head of Programmatic Development EMEA, Omnicom Media Group
Simon Baker, Head of Programmatic EMEA, Bloomberg Media Group
Jacqueline Boaky, Senior Director, Customer Success, PubMatic
Clementina Piazza, Programmatic Director EMEA, Integral Ad Science
The Programmatic Trading, Research and Brand Advertising committee members have put together their top predictions and trends for 2020. Take a read of what Europe’s greatest digital minds foresee for our industry!
2020 Trends – IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee
2020 Trends – IAB Europe Research Committee
2020 Trends – IAB Europe Brand Advertising Committee
IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Committee are already looking towards the future and predicting the challenges and opportunities for 2020. From Audio and Connected TV to impactful advertising and mindful marketing, the committee's team of brand experts reveal some top predictions and trends for the next year.
Manuela Lahidalga Guereñu, Marketing e Investigación, IAB Spain
We predict two terms that will become mainstream in 2020:
- Mindful marketing: It relies on listening to generate targeted marketing actions and customizable solutions. The brand tends to search for solutions and solve a specific problem with a clear commitment such as the environment, diversity or social rights, will no longer sell a product to a consumer, but tends to humanize focusing on the values of both the brand and humans.
- Multi-experience: Branding strategies can no longer be unilateral, now we have to offer differentiating experiences where not only sell product and brand commitment. One of the trends of this 2020 is to see branding strategies with multi-experiences highlighting virtual reality and augmented reality that will provide content, as they interact differently with the user, in commitment, by the high emotional content provided by these technologies and finally in visualization, by the great potential to take advantage of them.
Heather O Shea - NA Head of Media & Content, Insights Division, Kantar
Will newer audio channels go mainstream in 2020?
We predict that 2020 could herald a new age of audio advertising. We expect podcasts to be one of the fastest growing channels for ad spend: according to our Getting Media Right 2019 study, 63% of marketers say they plan to increase spend in podcast advertising over the next 12 months. The intimate and highly personal nature of podcasts offers advertisers a highly receptive audience. And being one of the least cluttered channels, they are also one of the most engaging - our measurement of podcast advertising shows above average lifts on metrics such as purchase intent when compared to our norms data. Radio is also reinventing itself, tapping into the broader resurgence of audio as a marketing channel. Digitisation is fuelling greater diversification, enabling the rise of more niche stations.
2020 could be the make-or-break moment for newer audio channels. Podcasts need to become more measurable to help advertisers and brands understand the ROI from their investments. Radio will continue to modernise in a way that helps brands reach new audiences, to reinforce its position as a relevant and reliable advertising medium. Over the next 12 months, aligning brands with these increasingly digital audio moments will need to evolve to a new level for marketers.
Małgorzata Walendziewska, Special Programs Manager, IAB Poland
At IAB Poland discussion intensivity about brand advertising in upcoming years is increasing. We've decided to ask experts representing various sides of digital marketing which trends will be the leading ones.
Marta Sułkiewicz, Chief Executive at Gemius GmbH CSO
The keyword for the upcoming year should be the rebirth of long-termism in the post digital age! We should focus on how to engage and captivate audiences with ads using ultimate touchpoint sequences instead of just forcing people to watch ads. Yet,I think there still won't be enough room for it in our discussions. We still need to worry about current issues like brand safety, viewability or transparency across media and the walled gardens. So instead of focusing on how to grow, marketers will still be thinking how not to lose”.
Estelle Reale, Global Marketing Director, Sublime
As a new decade beckons it’s exciting to see brands taking advantage of creativity in digital, and making use of innovative ad units that deliver an engaging framework for brand messaging. From videos to augmented reality, store locators to slideshows, brands have the tools to design truly immersive experiences, and interactive formats enable them to boost engagement rates.
‘Creativity’ will be 2020’s buzzword, with brands producing ad content that entertains, inspires, and informs. These three elements transform campaigns into something viewers seek out, care about, and engage with, rather than something they begrudgingly sit through to access quality content.
In particular, creativity will be indispensible in video, where shorter ad formats are designed to resonate with distracted audiences. Brands must utilise creative within short bumper ads and tell a brand story in under ten seconds. It is crucial here to ensure the creative seamlessly integrates with the content, without interrupting the user experience. Driving innovation and creating engaging and non-intrusive ad formats will be key as we enter the new year.
IAB Europe’s Research Committee have put together their top predictions and trends for digital research and measurement in 2020. Take a read of what Europe’s greatest research minds predict for our industry!
Anton Kopytov, Partner Technology Consulting, Mindshare Worldwide.
The rise of SVOD services, both US-based media giants and European ones - Having robust deterministic identity graphs to ensure cross-device distribution of exclusive content they will allow to execute complex advertising story-telling strategies. Key SVOD providers will be bundling their streaming services with other products and will embrace advertising models as an element of their financial models. Hence many advertisers will run video across environments that include other digital content or on digital out-of-home in an effort to sustain broad reach. Another alternative includes optimizing reach across a wider range of media, with a focus on using each medium to drive awareness as best as each can. Other marketers might find that a focus on outcomes as opposed to proxies for long-term outcomes (which brand awareness is arguably best at) rather than reach is a preferred approach.
More and more brands will embrace on digital transformation programs - These include direct-to-consumer concepts, sales via third-party e-commerce channels, and focus on driving consumers to digital experiences (including websites or branded content), more growth in spending on digital media will occur. Simultaneously it will require efforts for architecting and integrating multiple platforms across MarTech, AdTech, Commerce and Retail and Enterprise. To reduce complexity and optimize operational aspects in managing complex systems many brands will tend to gravitate towards end-to-end providers of solutions spanning marketing, advertising and commerce platforms.
The rise of augmented and conversational analytics, explainable AI and NLP will democratize further data and bring analytics closer to business users. We will see automation of key aspects of insights surfacing, media optimization, data science and advanced analytics in marketing and advertising across all ecosystem players. As such more teams will be enabled by technology for quick or near real-time decision-making vs. data crunching and reports generation which eventually should increase productivity of advertising. Also it will speed up adoption of outcomes-based commercial models in advertising: there will be a shift from well-established proxies in measuring effectiveness and optimizing activity to business-related outcomes.
James Colborn, Head of Global Data Solutions, Verizon Media
What The Cookie Monster Means For Measurement
Measurement in 2020 will face a series of headwinds brought about by privacy, regulation and technology. In light of a heightened focus on consumer privacy, browser enhancements like Intelligent Tracking (e.g. ITP on Apple Safari) will place enhanced pressures on measurement solutions that are reliant on 3rd party techniques (such as cookies) to operate. With only one leading, and arguably dominant, browser to still determine their implementation of this tracking measure, 2020 has a huge question around how measurement will be conducted in the coming year.
Based upon these changes, operating in a cookie-less environment will become a key consideration for advertisers, publishers and technology providers alike. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) may come to the fore as mechanisms to allow advertisers to manage their 1st party data and provide opportunities to partner with publishers and advertising firms to determine the effectiveness of their campaign performance.
Lastly, for 2020, the increasing focus on new (or in fact old media being digitised) such as Connected TV (CTV), Digital Out of Home (DooH) and Programmatic Radio, will offer up new media channels to add to multi-touch media modelling which, in turn, will present a greater and more comprehensive view of an advertising campaign's overall effectiveness. This, however, will continue to be challenged by data that is housed in walled gardens, preventing the advertiser from having a complete 360 degree view of their marketing spend.
Jane Ostler - Global Head of Media, Insights Division, Kantar
Cookies start to crumble - Changing the recipe
Since the 1990s, the cookie has been used to track online behaviour. This helps improve user experiences on websites, as well as deliver and measure targeted digital marketing.
As a result, the advertising industry has become reliant on cookies to activate and assess online campaigns. But in a world where data privacy concerns continue to intensify, technology providers like Apple, Google and Mozilla are moving to allow users to block third-party cookies.
Kantar’s Getting Media Right 2019 shows that this has nearly 65% of marketers concerned about providing impactful measurement in a post-cookie world.
Looking ahead to 2020, our prediction is that although cookies will start to crumble, they will not disappear completely for some time. Instead advertisers will be faced with a “mixed economy”.
But advertisers are crying out for fewer silos in campaign measurement, and in response to this, in 2020 we expect to see more direct integrations between publishers and measurement partners, enabling true cross-publisher measurement.
Campaign measurement will become ever more complex, and marketers will need to future-proof their measurement frameworks and reduce their reliance on cookies. Many looking to third-party measurement providers like Kantar to help navigate the evolving media landscape.
Phil Sumner, Global Media Insights Director, Teads
Without doubt, the biggest measurement challenge facing our industry is how we deal with a cookieless (or more realistically a heavily cookie-reduced) ecosystem. Updated European ePrivacy regulations and The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will no doubt affect the way we do business. Furthermore, the general trend for browser initiated cookie restriction will only accelerate this. This will serve to highlight the importance of high quality, transparent measurement but measurement providers will need to make strategic partnerships with media owners and agencies alike to ensure they can keep the lights on. Panels will have their revenge and those who wrote them off will eat humble pie.
In a new cookie-reduced paradigm, 3rd party behavioural signals will continue to reduce in volume and accuracy. The importance of context/content signals will only grow as a viable targeting source but media owners and Agencies alike will rapidly need to establish proof points to build trust in these methods, the efficacy and efficiency of the new segments which are produced.
Quality Audience Measurement and Viewability measurement are broadly considered transactional table stakes for Advertisers and Agencies across the region but The WFA’s Cross Media Measurement standardisation project and MRCs introduction of a new cross media standard will likely be the biggest global shake up in this area of measurement as Advertisers finally reach some semblance of alignment.
Finally, 2020 will be the year that Attention measurement reaches the mainstream and starts appearing more formally in the planning and measurement processes of brands and media agencies.
James Havelock, Manager, Advisory Services. Freewheel
2020 – One Campaign to Rule Them All
For premium video, 2020 will see a significant shift from proof of concept learnings into scaled execution in the linear addressable space. Linear and digital capabilities are becoming unified and 2020 will see business processes mature to this new dynamic. Supply side companies now have real world experience to align their linear and digital sales strategies, as well as unified campaign management and subsequent measurement and reconciliation. This enablement has to be supported by advocating addressable campaign benefits to their advertiser/agency customers who are demanding the same level of control and delivery insights available to vod-delivery. Like all revenue growth strategies that combine a mature model with an evolving model, it requires significant investment across people, processes and systems to work. With unified decisioning being enabled across many of our customers, we expect to see confident and successful adoption of unified processes across premium inventory including major events.
Virginia Alvarez, Executive Director, Marketing Intelligence and Femi Taiwo, Director, Data & Technology Strategy, from EMEA Marketing Intelligence, OMD
Predictions 2020:
Trust in Data … Trust in Bites of Data - Over the past decade, the growth of the Internet has generated seemingly endless amounts of digital Big Data. In turn, digital Big Data have been used to provide consumers, retailers, and marketers with information that has created efficiencies, enabled new capabilities, and opened up previously unrealized opportunities. However, it has been proven that Big Data has the potential to erode long-term brand equity because of its tendency to cultivate a short-term decision-making mindset. (Source: The crisis in creative effectiveness Peter Field June 2019)Some even would say that Big Data are no longer as representative as everyone may think. Big Data could have become Bites of Data – in terms of representativeness.
The GDPR effect - First party data always fed the purpose- if the objective of the research was clearly aligned. The challenge has always been that first-party data is rarely collected in large enough volumes to be actionable at scale, the way that third-party is. That’s why, Big Data opened us lots of opportunities to understand our target audiences better…. but with GDPR can Big Data be more trusted nowadays?
GDPR has not only given consumers the right to opt-in but have forced marketers to focus their attention on improving data hygiene processes, leading to better targeting and higher quality interactions. However, data collected with all the right processes & consent doesn’t mean the data is good – it just means it’s been collected well and you don’t have to worry about that aspect. The quality of, and opportunity to action, data should not be automatically inherited from how it was collected.
It is now more than ever our responsibility to demonstrate what do these data really mean, regardless how broad the data collection was, or how was it collected. In 2020, the role of an Insighter and any marketing professional will be to cut through all these caveats and truthful to the craft. It is going to be an ongoing balancing act managing the scale vs trust/accuracy requirements vs representativeness of the target audience under question….
Naomi Key-Field, Insight Director (Marketing Intelligence), OMD EMEA
As an anthropologist, I’m excited by signs of a move away from Big Data as the most important (if not only) route to media effectiveness & evaluation. An encouraging resurgence of interest in advanced behavioural techniques is emerging: Clients are recognising the need for richer understanding of the esoteric humans behind the faceless audience numbers gleaned in most campaign planning/ analysis. In my experience, the best way to augment interpretation of mass data points has been to design “human-first research” using bespoke, iterative, mixed-method approaches from the outset. To achieve optimal brand experiences, we must unpick complex consumer behaviours on multiple levels; ideally over time and in different contexts. People are not static and unresponsive; nor should be the research about them.
Challenges: Economic uncertainty often stifles research commissioners’ decision-making speed and willingness to invest in untested approaches. Innovation research budgets may be slashed if times are hard post-Brexit.
Members of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee have put together their top predictions and trends for 2020. From predicting a cookie-less christmas to TV manufacturers owning the Connected TV opportunity, take a look at what the committee have to say on where programmatic will go in 2020.
David Goddard, Chair of the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee and Senior Director, Business Development, EMEA, DoubleVerify
Advertisers’ appetite for Connected TV advertising inventory is at an all time high, so 2020 will be a year of growth. Naturally, CTV’s high value inventory will be targeted by fraudsters, thus we expect Ad fraud in this emerging environment to increase in volume and sophistication into 2020. We also anticipate progress in standardization that will facilitate consistent quality measurement – including viewability and brand safety – across CTV platforms and providers.
The growth, or re-emergence of contextual targeting will happen in 2020, as advertisers attempt to reach users in a post-GDPR world. With increased scrutiny and regulation around consumer privacy on the Internet, targeting audiences based on user data is becoming problematic for global brands. In response, contextual targeting at scale and publishers’ ability to package inventory in line with advertisers’ brand safety requirements, will become increasingly important.
2020 will bring Improved measurement to digital audio, that in-turn will lead to growth. Digital Audio is not a new concept, but as it grows, it is causing a shift-change in the advertising landscape. From streaming our favourite music to listening to the latest podcast, the additive nature of audio enables advertisers to avoid the fierce battle for the consumer’s screen and reach a highly engaged, captive audience. Despite these benefits, Audio is not being measured equally, making it hard to compare to the wider mediamix. In addition to measurement, greater quantity and variety of content will naturally increase brand safety concerns, meaning the need for quality authentication will grow, especially as more inventory becomes available both directly and programmatically
Léon Siotis. President of Europe, SpotX
2020 is the year we will see device manufacturers make sustainable claims in the TV advertising markets across Europe. In the past few years, we have seen the impact this group of companies have made in the U.S. and now we can expect to see similar strategies take hold here. Samsung’s ad-supported TV Plus proposition is now available in select European countries with plans to expand on this in 2020, while Roku inked their first European integrated TV OS partnership with Hisense, and Rakuten and Xumo have both struck their own integrated European partnerships with various manufacturers.
The integrated nature of these new offerings delivers a more seamless viewing experience, enabling video producers to discover new audiences for their content. Endemol has announced three channels for Samsung Plus and we expect to see many more launching across the various manufacturers in the new year. This will drive the entire category forward with advertisers and brands benefitting from the continuation of the popular big screen experience now coupled with unique data opportunities.
Not to be outdone, traditional broadcasters will continue to invest and see growth in their direct-to-consumer over-the-top (OTT) services. Sports has always been the biggest driver of live OTT viewing and the segment returns with a vengeance in 2020 with both the Euros and the Olympics. We expect to see record numbers of viewers watching these events across the various broadcaster apps, presenting a huge opportunity for them to deliver tailored advertising using server-side-ad-insertion (SSAI).
Akshay Bhattacharjee, Programmatic Solutions Specialist CEE & Nordics, Integral Ad Science
The Transparency Challenges of Programmatic
2019 saw greater demand from the buy side to have transparency into the quality of traffic coming from the sell side. This has on one hand created positive ripples, resulting in a better educated industry who are more up to date on fraud, brand safety and brand suitability and the impact these factors can have on the effectiveness of digital advertising. Brands and Agencies are also demanding this quality traffic by opting to collaborate with publishers and SSPs that are verified by third parties, such as Integral Ad Science, who can ensure humans, not bots, are viewing their ads. But whilst this level of awareness and industry knowledge will continue to grow in 2020, the sell side is likely to remain slow to full unveil the full blue print behind how their inventory is bought and sold.Hence, the Buzzword for 2020 would be Transparency.
Szymon Pruszyński, Head of Global Communication, Yieldbird
Next year will surely be full of changes and new exciting opportunities in the digital advertising industry for brands looking to reach their audience. As we are mostly focused on programmatic part of it we are very eager to see what will be the future of the third party cookie after Google will implement the announced changes on the Chrome browser level. We are expecting it will not create as many difficulties for the industry as changes on Safari and Mozilla did in the past few years, but it should give an opportunity for couple new companies to come up with new useful products and solutions, and it will require both advertisers and publishers to adjust their advertising strategies. The buzzword for 2020 can surely be context, as without vast recognition of users in the internet proper context can be much more significant to introduce brands to their proper target groups.
John Wittesaele, CEO, EMEA, Xaxis
As an industry we are seeing a growing consensus that traditional measurement metrics such as click-through-rates (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) are out-dated and misleading – making it hard to justify the case for an increase in digital advertising budgets. To ensure advertising is measured effectively and directed towards tangible business objectives, marketers will need to look further into newer measurement techniques, customisation and optimising creativity. Therefore as we look ahead to 2020 and beyond to the next decade, the buzzword will be ‘outcomes’.
By focusing on desired business goals via outcomes, advertising can provide value, which is cost efficient and profitable, all while improving the consumer experience through relevance and personalisation.
Ben Geach, Senior Director, Global Product Strategy, Oracle Data Cloud
Top Prediction for Programmatic in 2020 - Finally, the death of keyword & domain blacklists in media buying
Brand safety means different things to different brands, and while blacklists have proved effective, but as more inventory goes programmatic, a more nuanced, custom approach is necessary. So in 2020, we will start to see the demise of the traditional keyword blacklist in favor of a shift to dynamic, custom brand suitability.
Brand suitability will ensure advertisers get access to more premium inventory that better aligns with their brand, and more control of their ad spend. Meanwhile, publishers will benefit from an increase in scale and a more complete match of their high-value inventory to advertisers.
Most impactful disruptor for 2020 - Insights fueling creative
Somewhere along the way, we forgot about the need to create exceptional advertising that connects with people on a human level. As the industry corrects itself, we will see brands and advertisers disrupt by way of leveraging the insights and data at their disposal to fuel creative.
For example, insights available through contextual intelligence technology reveal how content trends shift over time, when people are engaging with content, and when they are in certain mindsets. All this will be used to fuel the creative process and allow marketers to understand the ads that are drawing the most attention, what messages are connecting with audiences, and how people are taking action because of it.
James Prudhomme, Executive Vice President, International, Index Exchange
There’s a shift taking place in our industry, particularly as third-party cookies disappear from browsers. Earlier this fall, when Firefox made the decision to block all third-party cookies by default, both publishers and buyers felt that impact almost immediately (particularly in Germany, where the browser has greater market share). Publishers’ revenue took a hit, and buyers’ bid rates were down by as much as 40%.
It’s challenging in the short term, but long-term, we think the loss of cookies is going to move our industry to a more people-based, deterministic advertising model. Ultimately, this change will create greater opportunities for premium and trusted publishers, buyers, and tech providers across the open web.
The key is to focus on the end-user and build Identity and people-based solutions with them in mind. Looking at the market right now, it’s clear what matters to users — they want more control over their data and a clearer understanding of how the internet is using that information. If your focus is on the user and how to earn their trust — as ours is — solutions built around deterministic, first-party data become the clearest path forward. That, we believe, will be the future of programmatic trading.
Kofi Amoako – VP of Customer Success & Operations, Pubmatic
Identity is the hot topic coming out of Dmexco. It was part of many conversations and an ask both from the buy side and the publisher side.
The challenges presented by the cookie crumbling also present an opportunity for increased innovation and collaboration between publishers and independent tech providers. Publishers are forming alliances to enable contextual targeting at scale across their collective properties. Industry consortiums like NetID* and ID5* are providing identity alternatives. And we are seeing more willingness among publishers and tech providers alike to work together more closely to counter the duopoly and cookie threat.
The pending death of the third-party cookie will most assuredly lead to new identity tools that will disrupt the display market in 2020. It remains to be seen which of the emerging solutions will achieve the scale needed to compete with the walled gardens to deliver advertisers with the ROI they need.
Lisa Kalyuzhny, Senior Director, Ad Solutions of EMEA, Pubmatic
The year of mobile – According to our latest research, massive growth in mobile ad spend can be attributed to the amount of time users are spending on their devices (vs. desktop) and the emergence of new formats like video. These changes have led to an evolution in programmatic buying in both developed and emerging global markets. Mobile ad platform spending continued to grow aggressively in Q3, rising 28% over last quarter, while desktop ad platform spending declined slightly over the same period.
For 2020 and beyond, brands should expect to see marked improvements in quality and transparency of in-app media environments with the adoption of OM-SDK as well as the evolution of KPIs and benchmarks, enabling marketers to reach target audiences at scale, across platforms, in a brand safe manner. Additionally, header bidding technology will see more investment from app developers looking to take advantage of the advancements in media monetization already broadly adopted by the web publishers.
Phil Eligio, Head of Advertising, Adevinta
Overall, I will be excited to see programmatic trading continue to mature and become known as a sophisticated, clean and effective way of helping monetise the publisher relationship with its audience fairly, in order to drive further investment in organisations providing valuable news, information and other services to the community.
Key predictions for Programmatic Trading in 2020:
- Open Bidding vs Amazon TAM vs Prebid server as the solution for server-side third-party demand management will be stress tested. At least one will become known as the 'also ran'.
- Different approaches on the second-party data at scale will pop up to cover part of the need for programmatic trading addressability. Expect a larger range of 'data marketplace' options to arise and let themselves be known.
- The 'Identity' discussion will shift significantly, and will be augmented by external factors (browsers, regulation, etc.). Which of the current approaches to Identity are yet another hack with limited shelf life?
- A supply-driven solution for trading scale across legacy digital publishers will be an urgent need. A data and/or technology layer will be a base requirement, and successful scalability of that component will have a big role in any alliances' success.
- There will be more companies that exit the market as regulations in the space mature and browsers evolve
The 2020 buzzword for programmatic trading could well be 'addressability'.
12 December 2019, Brussels: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, today published the first edition of its Digital Transformation Playbook. The IAB Europe Digital Transformation Playbook 2019 is the result of great appetite in the market for guidance and best practices on implementing this transformative concept.
Developed by the IAB Europe Education and Training Committee, the Playbook leverages the experience and know-how of some of the largest corporate experts in the field of digital and IAB Europe National members. Their contributions and commentaries, all within an interactive repository, provides a multi-dimensional perspective to understanding and implementing successful digital transformation projects, including technology and innovation, data, but also – and perhaps most critical of all - the human factor.
Commenting on the importance for organization leaders to drive digital transformation, Neslihan Olcay, CEO, Wavemaker Turkey and Chair of the IAB Europe Education & Training Committee said “Perhaps more important than the technological dimension of digital transformation is the company culture one. The shift in the mindset of an employee to one that is in line with the rigours of today's digitised ecosystem is critical. The change needs to be pushed from the top down.”
The Playbook will be updated and refined regularly so that it reflects the latest changes and developments that impact digital transformation. Future editions will also expand on the roster of contributors to include evolving best practices and case studies from across Europe.
"Due to the breadth and applicability of digital transformation, this is not a process that is recommended only to emerging markets. Indeed, even powerhouse economies across Europe and the Globe can and should align to the digital world of today, if they have not done so already," explained Ewa Opach, Director of Education and Certification, IAB Poland.
Alex Macarescu, Programme Manager of IAB Europe’s Education & Training Committee is confident that the playbook can grow into a vital resource to any organisation across Europe, “The Digital Transformation Playbook is not claiming to be the one solution to achieving success in this transformative process. It is a gateway to the learnings and actions of organisations from a myriad of fields (from digital advertising to accounting) who share their experience of having gone through - and conquered – most of the opportunities and challenges of <<going digital>>.”
Organisations interested in accessing the free resource, can do so here.
For more information contact Alex Macarescu (macarescu@iabeurope.eu) or Helen Mussard (mussard@iabeurope.eu)
The noyb.eu press release and complaints erroneously suggest that IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) is designed to enable “fake consent” signals to be sent throughout the digital advertising ecosystem. On the contrary, the TCF policies and technical specifications were created precisely to ensure that the types of behaviour detected by the INRIA research project, do not occur.
TCF policies explicitly require that signals generated under the framework accurately reflect all user choices and that such signals are collected, logged and transmitted in accordance with what is required under the GDPR. Where publishers implement TCF-compliant consent management platforms (CMPs), the generation of any signals prior to informing the user and the user expressing their choices with regard to the processing of their data is forbidden. Hence, as a tool which strives to help the digital advertising industry comply with data privacy requirements, the TCF should be seen as part of the solution and not part of the problem.
IAB Europe believes that the research conducted by INRIA illustrates the value of a standardised solution such as the TCF in enabling enforcement authorities to hold data controllers accountable. We hope that the CNIL will use this opportunity to encourage market players to embrace this open-source, cross-industry standard going forward, and invite Mr. Schrems as well as the INRIA research team, to engage in a dialogue with us about how the TCF can be used to deliver on the requirements of the GDPR.
Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe
CONFIRMS 131 PLATFORMS HAVE PASSED AND MAY CONTINUE TO OPERATE
21 November 2019, London: IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, today announced the public launch of its Consent Management Platform (CMP) Validator Tool and the results of its first round of tests for registered CMPs on its Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF).
The TCF is a cross-industry, open-source standard created to help all parties who display and manage digital advertising and personalise content to comply with key provisions of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy Directive (ePD) when processing personal data or accessing or storing information on a user’s device. Developed by IAB Europe and National IABs in collaboration with organisations and professionals across the digital advertising and publishing industries, the first version of the TCF was launched on 25 April 2018. It enables first and third parties to establish a GDPR legal basis for data processing by soliciting and recording user choices based on information disclosures required by the law, and transmitting those choices via a standardised signal to vendors working with publishers. The information disclosures and collection and logging of user choices are done using a Consent Management Platform (CMP).
CMPs provide transparency, and collect, store, and - where appropriate - share consent information across the advertising ecosystem in order to ensure compliance with the GDPR.
Compliance for TCF Registered CMPs
Over the last five months, the TCF Compliance Team was tasked with validating all the registered TCF CMPs. A CMP Validator was built as a Chrome browser extension, which enables the tool to be run on any site, allowing it to analyse live CMP installations. The analysis presents information related to the implementation of the TCF technical specification, including data returned from the CMP API as well as the contents of the consent string. The Validator allows any CMP to be manually checked for a number of common compliance issues, where a CMP implementation does not adhere to the TCF technical specifications and/or TCF Policies.
Today, CMPs that passed all compliance checks were officially published on the website and awarded the official TCF v1.1 Complaint Seal. Over 150 CMPs have been through the validation process, with 131 of those passing the test.
Those CMPs that have been unable to develop and test a fully compliant version of their CMP will be suspended temporarily. This will signal to vendors that the consent string carrying the IDs of those CMPs are not valid and should not be acted on or transferred to other vendors. From today, all suspended CMPs that have not demonstrated an interest in complying with TCF policies and technical specifications will be definitively deactivated, and their ‘consensu.org’ sub-domains decommissioned.
Commenting on the launch of the Validator tool, Townsend Feehan, CEO, IAB Europe said “The CMP Validator is a comprehensive testing tool, built with ease of use and comprehensive feedback as key considerations. It is an example of the commitment of IAB Europe and National IABs to help companies comply with European privacy and data protection law and ensure the longer-term sustainability of the ad-supported Internet.”
A CMP’s failure to accurately read and record consumers’ choices not only reduces a publisher’s revenue and an advertiser’s opportunity to reach its audiences, but also exposes every part of the value chain to legal liability and potentially significant financial penalties, not to mention reputational brand damage. The IAB Europe CMP Validator therefore provides essential affirmation and assurance to both tech partners and publishers that TCF participation means adherence to the highest standards of privacy and regulatory compliance.
The list of CMPs that have successfully passed the Validator compliance test is now publicly available at: https://advertisingconsent.eu/cmp-list/
For more information, please contact Helen Mussard, Director of Marketing & Business Strategy, IAB Europe - mussard@iabeurope.eu
Madrid, November 2019. IAB Spain has presented the first Influencers Marketing White Paper, developed by the IAB Spain Influencers Committee.
The sector of Influencer Marketing is growing and generates too much interest for advertisers and makes it controversial between sell site and buy side. For this reason, and with the aim of professionalize the sector and improving the credibility, transparency and efficiency of the sector, IAB Spain has presented the Influencers Marketing White Paper. A guide that aims to unify criteria when defining advertising formats, pricing and legal aspects.
This first Influencers Marketing White Paper is based of the accelerating of the economic growth of digital advertising because the guide brings to advertisers closer to this sector, understanding the challenges and important developments that have taken.
The Influencers Marketing White Paper defines the ecosystem of influencer marketing, introduces the main stakeholders of the influencers ecosystem, determines the operating structure of an influencers marketing campaign and standardizes of the main metrics.
Influencer marketing is a new sector and has a complex business model. That's the reason that White Paper provide guidelines about how it works and a code of best practices in general, and a breakdown for briefing, proposal and negotiation/agreement and sets out legal requirement that influencers should know before launching their campaigns. These best practices have to be implemented to improve the quality, reliability, transparency and efficiency of influencers marketing campaign.
The document gives particular emphasis to the interaction of influencers with intellectual property rights and indicates that influencers takes differing forms such as autor, interpreter or participant. The paper also refers to the problems associated to perpetual transfer of rights, and to tax obligations resulting from this type of operations.
Blanca Formariz, President of the Influencers Committee of IAB Spain, highlights the role of this Committee to impulse this trend sector. Blanca emphasizes that “the experience of those who integrate the Committee provides the basics for establishing a influencers campaign and is doing a good and essential job in order to continue promoting long term relationships between advertisers and influencers”.
The document has been prepared by the working group of the Influencers Committee, made up of the associated companies: 2btube, Animal Maker, Antevenio, BBVA, Binfluencer, Go Talents, GroupM, Havas Media, Isobar, Keeper Experience, nPeople, Publicis, Reech, Social Publi y Vizz.
For more information contact:
Teresa García
Communication IAB Spain
teresa.garcia@iabspain.es
91 402 76 99 / 680.578.607
www.iabspain.es
IAB Europe, in partnership with IAB Tech Lab, announced on 21st August the launch of the second iteration of the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF). TCF v2.0 continues to support the overall drive of the TCF to increase consumer transparency and choice, management by digital properties of consent and compliance, and industry collaboration that centres on standardisation. Under TCF v2.0, not only can consumers grant or withhold consent, but they can also exercise their ‘right to object’ to data being processed. Consumers also gain more control over whether and how vendors may use certain features of data processing (for example, the use of precise geolocation).
What does the TCF provide for Vendors?
The TCF:
The registry of vendors, known as the Global Vendor List (GVL), enables vendor participation in the TCF. Before participating in the TCF it is important to understand the TCF Policy. Becoming an approved vendor in the GVL ensures that companies will be able to continue to work closely with publishers under GDPR rules.
All vendors including Sell Side Platforms (SSPs), Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), ad servers and data management platforms used on a publishers’ site can apply to be part of the GVL.
Google’s TCF 2.0 Integration Communication to Vendors
In October 2019, Google messaged their vendor community to let them know how Google will interoperate with TCF v2.0. When the TCF v2.0 launched in August 2019, Google confirmed they would be integrating when TCF v1.0 switches over to TCF v2.0 in Q1 2020. The communication with a supporting blog post to their vendor community can be seen here.
Register today for TCF v2.0
All vendors can now register to participate in TCF v2.0 at our updated vendor registration site here. We are very pleased to report that since opening the registration site just under a month ago over 15% of vendors have updated their registration to include TCFv2.0, with more registrations coming in every day.
Almost 90% of vendors who registered for the TCF have renewed their annual registration, which is again a great testament to the traction that the TCF has established in the marketplace.
Registration for the TCF includes the opportunity to register for both TCF v1.1 and TCF v2.0 – registration for both is inclusive in the annual TCF registration fee of Euro 1,200. Existing vendors can update their details to include TCF v2.0 using their vendor login here.
The registration process for vendors requires adherence to the TCF Policy and Terms & Conditions and provide transparency into how companies intend to comply with GDPR requirements, centralised into one location.
Publishers can use the GVL to view the vendors who are participating in the TCF, and to determine which vendors to include in the transparency and consent user interface they make available on their website.
For full details please visit https://iabeurope.eu/tcf-2-0/ or download our Vendor TCF 2.0 Factsheet
For support materials including information videos on what the TCF is and what's new in TCF v2.0, you can access marketing materials and videos here here.
For any more information please contact Helen Mussard
Digital audio is not a new concept but as it grows it is causing a shift-change in the advertising landscape. From streaming our favourite music to listening to the latest podcast , digital audio is a key part of media consumption. In this blog series, IAB Europe explores how the programmatic audio landscape is evolving across Europe. In the second blog we spoke to Zarpana Kabir, Head of Northern Europe Advertising at Adobe, Matt Bennathan, Senior Director, Channel Partnerships International at Oracle Data Cloud and Hilary Umeh, Director Business Development at The Trade Desk to find out more about the challenges of supply and measurement in digital audio advertising.
Find out more about about the developments, opportunities and challenges in Programmatic Audio Advertising in the first blog of this series here.
Question 1 - We hear that supply of audio inventory is a challenge, why is this?
Zarpana Kabir:
Audio is still a nascent format when it comes to buying inventory. The legacy, manual buying systems are still in place, and upfront deals are still very much a part of the audio industry. However, ad tech is gaining ground. We will continue to see this play out into the next year. Programmatic-enabled buying marketplaces for audio continue to make big strides in offering the industry an alternative, data driven way of buying audio ads.
Matt Bennathan:
There are several factors in play here, including the lack of transparency, limited technical integrations, and restricted measurability. Measurement plays the biggest role here, since brands continue to look for transparency, accuracy, and precision from their data partners to analyse ad effectiveness and inform their media buying strategy. Oracle Moat’s Audio Analytics solution is meant to bridge the gap between brands and publishers / content creators to help sustain the ecosystem of quality storytelling and creative process. Additionally, we’re part of the IAB working group for audio measurement collaborating across what will eventually count as an “Audible Ad.” But even so, there is currently no standard that exists for brands to use as a baseline metric to know an opportunity to engage with audiences was created.
Hilary Umeh:
The challenge stems from the simple fact that demand is currently outstripping supply. And the increasing shift to programmatic has magnified this issue – as, instead of the direct buy model that audio publishers have traditionally been accustomed to, programmatic encourages brands to think about their media purchases in a more fluid, adaptable way.
On top of this, finding inventory that is GDPR-compliant is of course crucial. However, this supply is scarce as most audio publishers don’t have a clear way of collecting consent – meaning that it’s currently impossible for the industry to use audience data in EMEA.
The demand/supply dynamic becomes particularly unbalanced at certain times of year – think Black Friday, Christmas – when brands naturally want to up their advertising. However, some publishers and SSPs aren’t currently set up to deal with this fluctuating demand, making the lack of inventory more noticeable – and problematic.
Question 2 - How can the supply challenge be overcome?
ZK:
The industry will naturally shift to make it easier to purchase audio, especially with programmatic marketplaces.
We saw a wave of consolidation in the last year, proving that Programmatic Audio is becoming more mainstream. Pandora purchased AdSwizz, iHearMedia acquired Jelli. This trend will continue as spending and demand continue to increase for the format. Another area where we will be able to unlock inventory is Podcasts, and we should see this trend taking shape with multiple inventory sources offering in-podcast.
This level of supply democratization is going to make it easier to access audio inventory, from music to Podcasts.
MB:
Overcoming the supply challenge begins with the shift in consumer behavior. Studies have shown consumers are changing their content consumption to audio platforms to fit their always-on, on-the-go lifestyles. Because concentration levels are much higher across audio, programmatic audio offers greater intimacy with boosted loyalty. Marketers see this as a way to interact in a profound way with users, where they can almost have a conversation with the end listener.
Once we have measurement of programmatic audio available in ways to perceive and recognise value for the media dollars being invested, brands will look to invest additional revenue and resources towards that audio. In time, the audio ecosystem naturally will evolve, alongside new technology and creative assets and more demand being built in the supply chain.
HU:
The solution to this problem is the same as it is for many such problems – allowing programmatic to truly compete with direct buys, in turn revealing what we all know: programmatic can allow buyers to select impressions in an efficient and effective way, and allow publishers to sell impressions more effectively too. This minimises wastage for buyers and maximises yield for sellers – a win-win situation.
We’re actually already seeing some key players make moves towards addressing this issue by offering programmatic packages over key periods - like Black Friday – for the first time this year. Such moves are great news for the industry as a whole, and a sign that we’re moving in the right direction.
Furthermore, audio, much like any other channel, shouldn’t be treated in isolation, but as part of a broader cross-channel strategy. When all parts of the ecosystem are working in a unified, programmatic way, the see-saw between demand and supply will naturally balance out.
And the thing is programmatic won’t just solve issues around supply, but will also enable brands to unify their strategies, consolidate campaign reporting and overlay data insights onto media planning and activation – the utopia of advertising!
Question 3 - Moving onto measurement, how does the measurement of programmatic audio advertising differ from programmatic display or video?
ZK:
Measurement is still pretty challenging. Obviously, the measurement logic that we have been using for standard digital ads will not apply in this instance. When we think of audio, we’re talking about having a virtual discussion with the audience. There are unique factors that go into these formats that need to be looked at – audio ads are telling a story, there are no visuals, and it’s not inherently interactive (from a direct action perspective). You’re really going to be looking at reach, frequency and its impact on behaviours. You can begin to look at brand surveys that measure propensity to purchase, favorability, and ultimately attribution to really understand audio’s role in driving behaviors and action.
MB:
We believe there are currently three differences. First, there aren’t standards for what an “audible” ad is, like there are for viewable display ads, or viewable and audible video ads. Second, there is not yet second-by-second measurement on the delivery of audio ads, on the audible duration, or on variables like the playback speed. Finally, given the prevalence of live reads, there is not always a clear way to distinguish an ad vs. the audio content, itself.
HU:
Measurement of audio doesn’t currently differ enough from other types of programmatic advertising – this is something that needs to change. Currently, measurement of audio focuses on similar, standard metrics to other types of advertising, like completion rates, device type, location etc. Now, this is partly due to an inherent limitation of the channel in that it doesn’t have as many consumer touch points as other channels.
But it also relates to the lack of data currently used in planning and executing audio campaigns. The more data that’s used, the more detailed and insightful the resulting metrics are.
It’s also important for brands to measure audio as one element of a broader campaign. For example, companion ads – where a banner ad is displayed at the same time that the audio is playing – add another dimension to measurement, as well as making the campaign itself more powerful.
Question 4 - Which key metrics brands should look for?
MB:
Aside from the baseline metrics of knowing that an ad reached a human and was audible at start, attention metrics such as audible quartiles, completion rate, when an ad was muted / unmuted, or at which point a user skipped will help provide marketers with valuable data to determine ad effectiveness in audio environments, conduct tests to improve creatives, and find unique and innovative ways to reach their audiences. The data and insights provide publishers with valuable analysis on how to strengthen strategy across editorial planning, best monetize premium content to sustain quality storytelling and creative process, and enhance the overall listening experience for their audience.
HU:
Currently brands are able to track, and report on, the following metrics: Start, Midpoint, First Quartile, Third Quartile, Completions, Impressions, Clicks. These are certainly all important and will help contribute to a thorough understanding of a campaign’s performance.
But if brands are to increase cost efficiencies in advertising (including audio), then moving to cost-based goals is a logical next step. The are several benefits to this approach. Not only does it mean brands will pay the right price based on performance, they’ll also reduce costs for better overall performance. On top of this, it also enables them to optimise more deliberately. In other words, making more cost-effective ad purchases enables brands to achieve more impressions – in turn, increasing reach and sales, if optimised correctly.
Blog contributors:
Zarpana Kabir, Head of Northern Europe Advertising, Adobe
Experienced Digital Marketer delivering seamless advertising experiences across multi-channel media platforms. Over fifteen years of experience developing Advertising Strategies across Branded Video and Performance ad campaigns for Global Brands & Customers.
Zarpana has spent the last five years as a Programmatic Advertising expert, leading Demand & Delivery teams across the US and EMEA. Currently residing in the UK, she leads the Advertising Business at Adobe, for Northern Europe (UK, Ireland, Nordics).
Matt Bennathan, Senior Director, Channel Partnerships, International, Oracle Data Cloud
With 20 years of experience in marketing to consumers, Matt strongly believes in leveraging data-driven insights to make more informed advertising decisions. Specialising in programmatic with leadership roles at eXelate, Nielsen Marketing Cloud, and Oracle, Matt pioneered the UK market. He was recognised with prestigious awards including The Drum Digital Trading Awards “Most Effective Use of Data” in 2016. The Drum independently voted Matt as a “Digerati” within the top 100 UK Digital Advertising leaders in 2017. Matt earned an MBA from Warwick Business School and speaks regularly at industry events.
Hilary Umeh, Director, Business Development, The Trade Desk
Hilary is currently Director of Business Development at The Trade Desk, where he works collectively with client services and trading teams to cultivate accounts, build relationships with senior leadership teams client-side, and identify strategic upselling opportunities. Hilary also oversees the laydown of client roadmaps based on individual client needs, working closely with product, marketing and revenue teams to constantly optimise efforts in line with company goals.
First published here.
Following an inclement few months, which included the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) releasing its Update Report into Ad Tech and Real-Time Bidding, IAB Europe has released the second iteration of the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF).
Notably, Google has announced that it will be integrating with the framework, with completion expected by the close of Q1 2020. To determine the potential impact of the updated policies, ExchangeWire spoke to various stakeholders to ascertain the benefits associated with adopting TCF v2.0, how the framework helps to protect consumer privacy, and what future steps can be taken to champion user rights whilst maintaining income from advertising spend.
The latest iteration of the Transparency and Consent Framework will deliver greater consumer control, while also evolving the industry’s compliance with privacy principles. This could not be more timely given the recent ‘Adtech Update Report’ released by the ICO.
With the ICO expressing concerns about knowledge and understanding of GDPR and ePrivacy requirements by companies involved in RTB, it is crucial that UK digital ad players review their current practice to ensure that they are operating in line with the law.
The TCF v2.0 is central to this. It’s the only cross-industry initiative of its kind and the most likely approach to effect real change across the digital ad ecosystem when it comes to meeting transparency and consent requirements. With the ICO making clear that it will not hesitate to take regulatory action if its concerns are not satisfactorily addressed, TCF v2.0 has a key role to play in helping to demonstrate that we can deliver cross-industry change.
The latest TCF release includes significant improvements for consumers – for example, people will have more granular control over the processing of their data and can exercise their ‘right to object’ – but it’s important to point out that it is not a silver bullet when it comes to privacy concerns; the issues in the ICO’s report go beyond what is covered by the TCF. The framework will, however, continue to evolve and adapt based on feedback from the ICO and other regulators, allowing it to change with our dynamic industry.
It’s in all of our interests for companies in the digital advertising sector that process personal data to implement TCF v2.0 – from advertisers and media owners to agencies and ad tech companies. Not only does it help to ensure that individual companies are functioning on the right side of the law, it also helps to build a responsible, self-regulated and sustainable digital ad industry.
Jon Mew, CEO, IAB UK
TCF v2.0 represents a mature and good faith effort to reconcile the often conflicting requirements of GDPR and ePrivacy and has placed the industry at the discussion table with regulators. It appears that consent CAN be established for the digital media supply chain in Europe. Going forward, the industry will need to establish consistency for consent implementations, and will also need to address related areas of regulatory concern that TCF v2.0 has not been chartered with solving, including the handling of special category data, an over-reliance on legitimate interest, and the safeguarding of personal data across the programmatic exchange environment.
These are significant challenges and further changes will no doubt be necessary. But rapid and consistent adoption of TCF v2.0 will be an essential part of any good news story the industry is able to tell in 2020.
Colin O’Malley, founder, The Lucid Privacy Group
In general, TCF v2.0 better serves each stakeholder by clarifying key aspects of the framework that had been criticised in v1 (purposes, features and stacks). It gives more flexibility and control to publishers which can now determine for each vendor that they select what legal basis are authorised on their websites. TCF v2.0 is a technically nimbler way to circulate consent information between vendors by giving more depth to the information that can be passed along the chain via the Transparency and Consent string.
TCF v2.0 gives internet users a better picture of what is going to happen with their personal data. End users will have the ability to access more and better information in a way that is more understandable: the notion of stacks corresponds to a more progressive access to the information which ensures that most users will not be interrupted with massive amount of legal jargon while other interested users are always able to access granular information. TCF v2.0 also reinforces user control over their data by facilitating the ability to oppose to specific vendors regardless of the legal basis they’re using.
TCF v2.0 also incorporates feedback received from various data protection authorities. In particular it establishes more specific purposes for advertising data processing. This allows for a clearer description of purposes that will be easier to understand. All in all it is a good step towards a valid GDPR consent for the industry.
The advertising ecosystem cannot operate without a standard way to communicate user choices between stakeholder. The TCF is already the most widely adopted consent standard out there. If Consent Management Platforms correctly do their work product-wise, TCF v2.0 will definitely become the best way forward for any stakeholder belonging to the advertising ecosystem, from advertisers to publishers.
There are still a lot of things that can be improved. An ideal future version of the TCF would allow sufficient and revocable cryptographic protection to user personal data. This would effectively guarantee that no personal data is accessed by a third party without a valid consent.
Romain Gauthier, CEO & co-founder, Didomi
As an industry, we need to make a compelling case for the benefits we bring to consumers. To do this, we need to show we are working together to address their concerns about data protection, and this is why robust, industry-wide standards are so important.
Consumers and regulators are concerned about accountability, and the Transparency and Consent Framework gives us an important way to deliver a key piece of that accountability: the ability to demonstrate that the consumer was given appropriate notice and choice with respect to the various purposes for which their personal data may be processed, and by whom.
TCF v2.0 has taken on board regulatory and consumer feedback and improved on V1 in several key ways to give consumers more control over their data. Importantly, it also helps encourage as many companies as possible to align around a single standard and is now gaining critical mass in the industry.
We want to work with regulators to address their concerns and we believe TCF v2.0 is well placed to play a central role in this.
Alice Lincoln, SVP data policy & governance, MediaMath
The TCF v2.0 is an important milestone for the digital advertising industry. The new version includes several much-needed features that improve control for publishers and enhance transparency to users. These improvements include more clearly defined purposes, publisher vendor restrictions, the ability to define legitimate interest as a legal basis, and support for out-of-band legal basis (which is when consent is achieved outside of the TCF). There are also a number of technical enhancements that make the TCF v2.0 more robust to integrate with.
As an industry, it’s important that we all support the new version and take advantage of its improvements. By coming together and adopting the same framework for managing user consent, we ensure that digital advertising respects users’ privacy and remains a viable way to support publishers’ businesses.
Scott Menzer, co-founder and VP, product & operations, ID5
Eighteen months is a long time in today’s fast-changing data privacy landscape. Since the introduction of GDPR on May 25 of 2018, we’ve benefited from the perspectives of consumers, regulators, the courts, and the industry. That’s why version two of the IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) provides even greater control for publishers over vendors and data processing purposes, transparency requirements and legitimate interest, and more granular disclosures to consumers. In addition, consent management platforms (CMPs) now have the ability to capture, store and signal a user’s right to object in addition to consent choices.
The TCF v2.0 was created with input from all corners of the digital ecosystem. This broad, collaborative approach has generated a framework that supports a wide range of publisher business models while benefiting consumer data protection through more transparency and choice.
Ari Levenfeld, chief privacy officer, Quantcast
There is a range of benefits for all parties within the advertising ecosystem. For consumers, the biggest benefits of TCF v2.0 are increased transparency and more detailed choices for how companies use and share their data. From a high level, it provides publishers with greater control, while also providing them a technical solution for how to collect and transfer personal data for digital advertising.
The implementation of the framework does not guarantee that the processing procedures of the participants are compliant. It’s a standardised, technical solution that makes it easier for participants to comply with the first steps of data collection for certain advertising activities (and signal that information to partners approved by the consumer). In terms of the benefits to consumers, it offers a unified solution (Google will also join) in which they will receive full transparency and choice across the ecosystem.
Once the framework is implemented across supply, demand, and ad tech vendors, everyone can get back to focusing on their business and providing privacy-compliant solutions, as opposed to juggling different standards. This is motivation enough.
It’s important to stay in communication with the data protection authorities and other industry players, in order to continue developing technical solutions that fit not only the EEA but other privacy regulations around the world. But as an industry, we also need to continue to show transparency with regards to how digital advertising works, so we can continue to gain (and keep) the trust of consumers. Lastly, it’s important to continue educating consumers on the value of personalised advertising.
Arndt Groth, CEO, Smaato
The primary benefit of the TCF v2.0 is that it is the only industry framework which allows, to those who have adopted it, to speak the same ‘GDPR language’ by adhering to the standard signals and TCF policies. Furthermore, it helps publishers and advertisers, as owners of digital properties, to build user trust by being transparent about their relationship with third party vendors, users to exercise their choice over data processing purposes and vendors, and vendors to have legal certainty as the data processing purpose language is standardised across many digital properties implementing the TCF. Without frameworks such as the TCF, every company, publisher, vendor or advertiser, would be left to fend for itself, and would have to invest even more resources to reconcile different purposes and obligations across many websites.
TCF v2.0 is rightfully considered to be a user and publisher version. Users will now be able to exercise very granular choices over 10 data processing purposes AND they will have specific control over how they are sharing their precise geolocation data and if they are allowing active fingerprinting of their devices. They will also be able to object to data processing in case vendors are relying on legitimate interest. Publishers, on the other hand, will have more control over how their partner vendors process data as TCF v2.0 allows publishers to signal their permissions, per purpose, to vendors.
Main challenge of the TCF v2.0, and generally speaking of any privacy-related effort, is communicating complex terms to users, and complying with the transparency requirements of the law in a limited space of a mobile phone screen. GDPR is supposed to raise awareness about privacy among users, and not numb them. Hence, designing effective and good user interfaces is of paramount importance, and our current and future greatest challenge.
Stevan Randjelovic, brand safety manager, GroupM EMEA
Several of Comscore’s publisher clients have opted to build their own, or contract with, a Consent Management Platform that integrates with the TCF. The TCF v2.0 therefore facilitates the collection of privacy signals for Comscore’s Audience and Advertising Measurement services.
This means that publishers now have a choice to use the TCF, or use our specifically adapted javascript tags for the collection of consent signal for syndicated measurement services.
For Comscore’s Audience and Advertising Measurement solutions TCF v2.0 enables a standardized and distributed network solution for a variety of Consent Management interfaces that European consumers can be shown when accessing online services. The TCF v2.0 provides a granular level of controls so the consumer can manage their privacy choices as they surf online.
Several publishers, consent management platforms and digital services vendors have aligned already to use the TCF v2.0 as a key solution for helping users manage privacy choices. The early adopters have demonstrated that the technical framework is functional to the design which should encourage more publishers that the solution is scalable. Further discussions with national privacy authorities to reassure the market that the framework is an appropriate and efficient solution to managing privacy compliance would encourage more publishers to adopt the framework over the long term.
The framework will continue to evolve, adding additional functionality in future versions to help manage privacy compliance on additional use cases. Cross-industry support for the roadmap, as well as support for governance of the framework, will help build a long term, sustainable and efficient solution for the best practice operators in the industry.
Stuart Wilkinson, head of industry relations EMEA, Comscore
All the learnings from TCF v1.0 contributed to making v2.0 a much more mature framework, including feedback from the authorities. Thanks to these improvements, Google has committed to join, which is by far the most significant news coming with v2.0.
The TCF v2.0 iterates on the same principles of transparency and standardisation that inspired v1.0. It does it by introducing more granular purposes that users can customize their data processing from and makes the requirements for consent collection stricter, to the user’s benefit.
Pressure from advertisers to comply with the GDPR is leading vendors to request publishers to adopt the TCF. With Google joining, the TCF v2.0 is going to be the standard, meaning that publishers not adopting it will definitely have repercussions on their ad serving.
What’s even more important, though, is correct application of the TCF, as often websites that don’t work with any of the vendors adhering to the TCF wrongly adopt it. Other websites adopt it, but don’t follow the guidelines. This seriously undermines the trust of the framework – particularly when these deviations to the guidelines are sanctioned by the authorities – and is something the whole industry should vigilate over.
Right now the TCF only applies to the EU, causing a disparity both on user rights and on the capability for publishers to monetize their traffic. With Safari and Firefox banning third party trackers and the increased penetration of ad blockers, establishing user trust is becoming not just a requirement from regulators, but a condition for the industry to survive. And it might even be too late.
Andrea Giannangelo, CEO and head of product, iubenda
“The development of TCF v2.0 is a positive step towards providing greater transparency to consumers. The IAB has incorporated publisher feedback and the increased flexibility of the framework will surely encourage its adoption.
“To ensure user privacy and an enhanced consumer experience, however, the industry will need to take steps beyond simply complying with a given standard or regulation. It’s a matter of ensuring consumer preferences are preserved across media environments and geographies, and integrating those consent signals into a technology solution.
“Data with consent attached is simply better data, and not just from a privacy point of view. It’s inherently more effective when used to buy and sell advertising inventory. Media sellers and media buyers understand this, and the industry should come together to leverage consent to create better deals for all players.”
Ben Barokas, founder & CEO, Sourcepoint
With the plethora of benefits available under TCF v2.0 as outlined above, Google set to adopt the framework by Q1 2020, and the ICO looking for meaningful engagement from the industry, this is the opportune time to adopt the framework. Registrations to join the TCF v2.0 are now being accepted and can be submitted here.
