Member Guest Post with IAB Turkey: Interact 2023 - Madrid Diaries

This week’s member guest blog post is from Ilhan Demir, Academy Manager at IAB Turkey, who discusses his experiences of day one of our very own Flagship event Interact in Madrid. He shared his key highlights and takeaways of the event. Read below to learn more.

IAB Europe’s Annual Flagship Event Interact was held between 23rd - 24th May 2023 in Madrid for the second time, with the theme of ‘Innovation, Sustainability & Growth’.

Here are my notes about the event, I hope you enjoy reading!

AdEx Benchmark 2022 Report “Under the Shadow of Inflation”:

AdEx Benchmark Report, which is Interact’s most anticipated session and the opening keynote every year, was announced again this year by IAB Europe’s Chief Economist Daniel Knapp. Although Türkiye has been facing high inflation for a while, the inflation problem was also highlighted on the agenda of other European countries.

According to the report, European Digital Advertising Investments reached 86 billion Euros in 2022 with a growth of 9.8%. Among 29 countries, Türkiye has the highest growth of 93.3%. When we look at the data adjusted for HCPI, Türkiye is still number one in growth ranking and has the highest growth rate (CAGR) for 3 years at 41.5%.

At last year's conference, the growth forecast for 2022 was announced as 10.1%. According to Daniel Knapp's forecast, total Digital advertising investments are expected to be 90.1 billion Euros, with a growth of 4.8% for 2023.

You can find the report highights here.

Accessible Advertising 

P&G Europe’s Brand Senior Vice-President, Taide Guajardo emphasised the concept of “accessible advertising” in her presentation “Resetting the Bar on Brand Communication”. Guajardo shared one of the most mind opening presentations of the conference, which touched on the changing ad formats, target audience breakdowns, ad technologies, ad creatives and many concepts from the past to the present.

Retail Media 101

Carrefour Links General Manager Alexis Marcombe addressed Retail Media from A to Z in  his presentation bringing all attendees to the same point on Retail Media - one of the hottest topics of recent years. According to Marcombe; Retail Media is seen as the third wave of digital advertising after Search and Social.

Marcombe lists the top motivations of advertisers to invest in retail media as follows:

• Reasonable cost of media
• Access to audiences otherwise not reachable.
• Best performance delivery
• Unique Shopper / Brand Insight
• Scale / size of audience
• Omnichannel measurement

Streaming TV:

Alexandra Ong, Business Development Director at Magnite's Streaming TV's New Era: How Ads Are Powering Streaming's Future in the EU5 highlights included:

• Streaming is the highest form of TV: 78% streaming TV (Internet), 60% Broadcast TV (free over-the- air receiver), 37% Paid Traditional TV (cable/satellite)
• 40% of non-streamers are likely to start  streaming in the next 6-12 months.
• 82% of streaming TV viewers watch content with ads.
• Over 2 hours of streamed TV programming is watched each week, on average; 90% of consumers watch short-form videos (up to a few minutes long) on social media.
• Streamers’ weekly TV viewing habits as follows:
  • 92% TV screens
  • 73% smartphone/tablet
  • 69% laptop/desktop
• 75% of ad-supported streamers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand they engaged across devices (compared to 64% of traditional viewers)

Attention Please!

In my opinion, the most "remarkable" session of the event, both in terms of its content and the speakers’ contribution was ‘The Power of Attention’. The concept of Viewability and the Attention Economy was discussed in a joint presentation by Peter Maxwell, Global Media Lead from The Heineken Company and Phil Sumner, VP Global Research operations from Teads. Highlights from the session are as follows:

• “Attention” predicts branding outcomes 3x better than viewability metrics
• Attention metrics were 180% more correlated with ROI compared to viewability metrics.
• “Attention” is a better predictor of sales conversion rate compared to viewability

Trust & Transparency: The Future of Responsible Marketing

Trust and Transparency was addressed by Michael Todd, Global Director of Google Industry Relations. According to Todd;

• People are 3x more likely to react positively to advertising when they feel in control of their data.
• But only 3% of internet users feel they have complete control of the disclosure and removal of their data online.
• 71% prefer to buy from brands that are honest about what data they collect and why.
• 43% would choose to switch a brand that gave them a good privacy experience. 

The Locomotive of the European Economy: Advertising Industry

In the closing panel of the first day, the contribution of the Digital Advertising industry to the European economy was discussed. Highlights from the session are as follows:

• 1 Euro of advertising spend generates 7 Euros for the economy, representing 4.6% of the overall EU GDP.
• Advertising is a major source of employment, providing almost 7 million jobs in the EU.
• Advertising provides EU citizens with news & entertainment at a reduced cost or even for free.
• Digital advertising is at the forefront of innovations in privacy & AI.

And the Prizes…

This year’s MIXX Awards Europe winners were announced on the evening of the first day.  Turkish agencies and advertiser teams won 5 awards in total. You can find the full list of awards here.

Right after the keynote speakers’ presentations, highlights and outcomes were discussed in the panels organised with the participation of people with various expertises. And there is no doubt that Circulo de Bellas Artés, the venue of Interact, was a great choice regarding the location and the fascinating ambiance. Thanks again to the IAB Europe and IAB Spain teams for the organisation!