2021 Was the Year That Taught the World That The Future Is Unpredictable

It was a year that taught us the importance of perspective and becoming an active participant in problem-solving. It also taught us that the significant problems we face are surmountable, as long as we all work together.

As an industry, we’ve learned to shrug off one uncertainty after another, to take hard hits in stride, and to maintain our focus onthe future.

We’ve learned that, as basketball great Michael Jordan put it, “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

We’ve had a heady glimpse of what lies ahead, in everything from the non-stop rise of streaming and gaming, to ubiquitously useful QR codes, to the early dawn of the metaverse. If there has been any silver lining to the pandemic, it is that it has allowed us a glimpse into our future—and that future means endless opportunity and potential.

However, we are not going to realize that potential if we can’t let go of some baggage of the past. Growth brings lots of new challenges, but there are plenty of challenges that are all too familiar.

We can’t shrug off fraud, despite our progress over the years—especially as it spreads to exploding channels like CTV. Technology matters. Transparency matters.

We can’t shrug off the patchwork of legislation that keeps coming out of the dysfunction in Washington.

We can’t shrug off the critical need for diversity and inclusion, especially when new thinking is needed.

On all of these issues and more, the industry needs action and not words. So it’s fair to ask, what is IAB actually doing aboutany of this?

We’re tackling ad fraud and other issues head-on. We are updating the industry toolkit to bring new technical standards to the marketplace. We’ve brought on respected industry veteran Anthony Katsur as CEO of IAB Tech Lab.

Action, not words.

If you read our latest economic study about “The Economic Impact of the Market-Making Internet—Advertising, Content, Commerce, and Innovation: Contribution to U.S. Employment and GDP,” you know the internet economy grew 7 times faster than the total U.S. economy and created over 7 million jobs in the last four years. Policymakers can’t make good decisions unless they know that too.

We’ve significantly strengthened our efforts in Washington, hiring public policy pro Lartease Tiffith (formerly of Amazon) as IAB Executive Vice President, Public Policy. We’ve also onboarded Brendan Thomas as Vice President, Public Policy Communications.

Action, not words.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) remains a critical issue. We’ve brought on DEI champion Jessalin Lam to lead IAB’s Learning & Development and DEI Programs and launched the industry’s first digital media apprenticeship program. We’re making it easy for companies of every size to have an immediate impact. It’s an intense year-long, on-the-job training program that builds powerhouse skills. If we want leaders for tomorrow, we must invest today.

Action, not words.

Speaking of which, this applies to IAB members too— including agencies, who are now able to be members in full.

Signing up as a member at IAB is no different than signing up for a gym membership. If you want the industry to get into shape you have to show up. You have to sweat. Inspiration and perspiration. You have to do the work.

There’s more than enough heavy lifting for everyone, and we need the industry’s strongest executives to join in. If we’re notracing fast enough in 2022, IAB members need to join us in demanding that we move forward.

Running in place won’t get us anywhere.

In 2022, we need action, not words.

We need to build on the momentum of 2021.

We need all of us, all in it together.

Let’s make 2022 matter.

Yours respectfully,

David Cohen
Chief Executive Officer, IAB

2021 Highlights: Leading Through Unusual Times

2021 was a year of superlatives. The words unprecedented, once in a lifetime, and volatile, for example, have been useda lot. But 2021 was also a year of resilience, renewal, renaissance—and a time to reset.

A study released in October 2021 called The Economic Impact of the Market-Making Internet, commissioned by IAB and led by a researcher from Harvard Business School, shows just how powerful our industry’s penchant for reinvention,resilience, and renewal has been.

The internet economy grew seven times faster than the total U.S. economy over the past four years, directlycreated over 7 million jobs, and now accounts for 12% of the U.S. gross domestic product.

That’s an astonishing feat and clearly shows that the market-making internet has never been more important. But it hasalso never been more challenged.

In the U.S. in 2021, trust in the tech sector dropped precipitously to an all-time low of 57 out of 100, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. The main reason for this drop is the increasingly “complicated” relationship between the public and technology— including the spread of misinformation, rising privacy concerns, and bias in artificial intelligence, allthings which touch our industry profoundly.

There is no denying that Big Tech is under assault by lawmakers in Washington and there is major work ahead to persuadelegislators to not harm small businesses in their efforts to take on the biggest players. Part of rebuilding that trust also means our industry needs to strike the right balance between convenient and creepy for consumers and deliver personalization without compromising trust.

And collectively, we need to think harder about the talent crisis and the new ways people want to live and work.

According to the latest Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey, one in three women have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year. A similar lack of support exists in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. People are at the core of our industry, andthey need support and opportunity to thrive.

Make no mistake: What happens in 2022 will shape our country, our world, and our industry for the nextdecade or more. It’s not going to be a year of getting back to normal.

That thinking informs the theme for the 2022 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, Visions and Decisions. In the months ahead, all of us will need to step up and lead with vision and conviction. There are hard decisions ahead that will have significant consequences as we collectively work to re-architect privacy and addressability and continue to push for national privacy reform. We’ll need to pull together, take the right kinds of risks, rebuild damaged trust, and expand the boundaries of the possible.

Our industry, which has had a gift for invention and re-invention since its earliest beginnings, will need to do all of that again—and do it better than ever.

Re-Architecting Privacy and Addressability

IAB and IAB Tech Lab have been focused on collaboration towards standards to achieve predictable privacy for consumers through the first parties they trust, increased accountability and trust for the industry, and improved market innovation and competition. IAB Tech Lab has also gathered the whole ecosystem from buyers (agencies and brands) to sellers (publishers) as a global initiative to re-architect how digital marketing works and how the loss of third-party cookies and other identifiers will profoundly affect the digital media and marketing industry.

As part of Project Rearc, the Tech Lab launched the core standards for responsible addressability and predictable privacy including the Global Privacy Platform document that represents progress toward a Global Privacy Platform (GPP) architecture. The Accountability Platform is designed to ensure that all digital advertising supply chain participants can consistently show that they are adhering to user preferences. The Best Practices for User-Enabled Identity Tokens document establishes guidelines for the encryption and use of user-enabled IDs—notably email addresses and phone numbers—in scenarios when online publishers or marketers offer personalized content or services tied to a user-provided email or phone number.

IAB and IAB Tech Lab continued the education and awareness campaign for predictable privacy and responsible and accountable addressability bringing together industry experts via the Addressability SolutionsRoadshow and town hall series throughout the year.

Engaging the New Media Consumer with Streaming

TV and video have been reborn in the pandemic as streaming. Brand plans are beginning to start with streaming and using linear to fill in the gaps, not the other way around. The lines of demarcation between “traditional” and “digital” are gone—and it’s now all TV. The streaming wars have only just begun, and video is more dynamic now than ever.

Radio and audio are being reborn too. Podcast ad revenue alone is on track to hit $2 billion by 2023, powered by innovations like dynamically inserted ads. The IAB Media Center is laser focused on accelerating video and audio adoption in a cross-platform marketplace, quantifying the opportunity for brands and marketers in research like the Video Ad Spend and Outlook for 2021 and bringing leaders together for marketplaces like the NewFronts, the Podcast Upfronts, and the Fall Video Marketplace that convene buyers and sellers to see and hear the latest opportunities and innovations in premium video and audio content.

Driving the Evolution of Next-Generation Measurement

Personalized advertising, measurement, and attribution arebeing reborn as our entire industry rockets into a cookieless future. We’ve been talking about re-architecting measurement for two decades and it’s finally time to make it a reality.

To assess the digital advertising ecosystem’s preparedness for the loss of third-party cookies and identifiers, the Programmatic+Data Center commissioned Ipsos to conduct a quantitative study, IAB State of Data 2021. The report surfaced significant and actionable insights drawn from a survey of more than 200 data decision-makers within brands, publishers, agencies, and data companies.

Overall, IAB is committed to addressing modern management’s expectation of more accountable marketing and media spend—and the challenges of delivering in a volatile regulatory environment.

Improving Trust and Transparency Across the Ecosystem

The digital advertising industry needs a transparent and safe marketplace for digital advertising and marketing transactions if it is to thrive. Only with the help and dedication of the entire advertising community can we collectively instill confidence in consumers, security in content creators, and better understanding in marketers. To accomplish these ambitious and essential goals, IAB Tech Lab engages a member community globally to develop foundational technology and standards that enable growth and trust in the digital media ecosystem.

There are many tools available, but they don’t matter if they’re not adopted. Launched in 2021, the IAB Tech Lab Transparency Center provides a resource that makes it easy for digital advertising participants—buyers, sellers, and ad tech companies—to see which standards media partners have implemented, their level of compliance, certification program results, and more. This will help ensure a safe, privacy-centric ad experience for consumers. The Transparency Center includes supply chain validation, a global industry compliance registry, and an advertising system aggregation. The Tech Lab also announcedthe launch of its Open Source Initiative to increase transparency and collaboration across the advertising community. Housed on GitHub, it provides standards implementations that can be directly integrated and tools that can help deploy standards.

Finally, as part of Project Rearc, the Tech Lab also launched the Accountability Platform designed to ensurethat all digital advertising supply chain participants can consistently show that they are adhering to user preferences.

Propelling Talent Development and the DEI Imperative

As we are experiencing “The Great Resignation,” IAB will be providing sustainable solutions to address the industry’stalent crisis and development needs. It’s critical for IAB to address the industry talent crisis and to proactively continue to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. The Talent Development Council is designed to help IAB members connect with colleagues at peer organizations, onboard new employees efficiently, create DEI programs that perform, and hire, train, and recruit in a hybrid environment.

IAB’s Digital 360 Suite and Industry Knowledge courses are available for members to purchase on-demand or license to package into their own learning management system to retain and upskill their talent. And IAB has recruited companies to sign up for the first nationwide IAB Accelerate: Digital Media Apprenticeship in partnership withAmerican Apprenticeships Work (AAW) that will launch in 2022 to address diversity in the workforce across the industry.

As you can see, our list of challenges and accomplishments in 2021 was extensive. And our ambitions for 2022 areeven more aggressive.

Yes, the legislative landscape continues to be ominous, and our industry is in the crosshairs for intense regulation and reform. 2022 will be a year of profound change, risk, and opportunity, and what we do next year will shape the next 10 years.

But working together, we will prevail—and clear the way for brands to connect with audiences and thrive.

Leadership: IAB Executive Committee & Board 2021

Media Center: Accelerating Video and Audio Adoption in a Cross-Platform Marketplace

We saw nearly every assumption about audio and video challenged in 2021 as new streaming services and platforms, omnichannel behaviors, privacy, and e-commerce imperatives shifted the landscape. Digital video now represents more than half (56%) of the total video spend and connected TV (CTV) saw its highest gains to date in ad spend with 22% growth year-over- year. In addition, no fewer than five major streaming services were launched in 2021. Adults now spend an average of 140 minutes of digital video per day, up from 133 minutes in 2020, and household adoption of CTV is now at 83% (up from 76% in 2019). Addressing this new landscape, the IAB Media Center is focused on the fast- changing video and audio habits of today’s consumers.

Key areas of focus for the Media Center include:

• Propelling adoption of digital video, advanced TV, CTV, and audio through education and adoption of standards and best practices
• Maximizing the speed with which the industry advances by packaging and communicating technical video/audio standards in business terms
• Reducing marketplace friction through shared terms and conditions and education in measurement with guidance on how to measure, plan, and evaluate campaigns using cross-platform video/audio
• Developing advocacy for the value of news, quality publishing, and long-term investment along with practical advice to ensure brand safety and suitability

Key accomplishments of the Media Center in 2021 were focused around three campaigns: Tele://Vision, Audio Everywhere and News Saves Lives.

Living the Stream: Tele://Vision

The last two years have accelerated the rise of streaming, making it even more crucial that the entire ecosystem change how video is bought, sold, measured, and optimized.

While expectations for year-over-year growth in digital video have become the norm, there are nuances beneath the big numbers that point to how seismic shifts—from new viewing behaviors and launches of streaming platforms, and the ongoing migration of $70 billion in linear TV spend—are happening across multiple platforms and how the growth of CTV is increasingly becoming an omni-media story. To help members make sense of the changes required, IAB released the Video Ad Spend and Outlook for 2021 before NewFronts. The report provides a lens to the trends in this marketplace, with guidance for brands, buyers, and sellers on how they can position and differentiate their video offerings based on where the money is moving and how planning, measurement, and creative are evolving to support brand engagement with consumers.

Connected TV (CTV) is largely responsible for digital video’s resilience in 2021 thanks to strong consumer demand for streaming digital content.

Buyers are not only following consumer attention, they are flocking to CTV. It is the perfect marriage of high-quality content, superior targeting, in-market optimization, and robust measurement.

— David Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, IAB

As personalization becomes increasingly challenged in this more privacy-focused era, the need for creative that both performs and scales across platforms has never been more important. The CTV Creative Best Practices Guide released in August examines the current state of creative, identified where the challenges are, and denotes where the industry is coalescing in terms of creative strategy and scalable formats. Connected TV represents an entirely new platform with new content capabilities, creative formats, and audiences with new expectations. To help members understand this new medium, the Tech Lab released a programmatic guide to CTV which includes a set of use cases for preparing assets, responding to an ad request, mitigating ad fraud, and enabling targeting.

Following the NewFronts in May, IAB heard from many brands and agencies about the need to engage more frequently with the marketplace. The Fall Video Marketplace in September brought together buyers and sellers to see and hear about the latest opportunities and innovations in premium video content, garner insights, and discover solutions with an eye toward incremental opportunities. Key themes included the explosion of streaming platforms and OTT, the diverse audience opportunities of these new platforms, the need to recalibrate attribution models with the widespread adoption of omnichannel strategies, and measurement and attribution challenges in a multi-touch world.

These themes were also part of the sixth annual IAB Video Leadership Summit in October where more than 100 senior industry stakeholders gathered across marketing, media, agency, and technology industries to generate actionable ideas to reduce friction and collaborate on growth opportunities in the increasingly omnichannel video landscape. The momentum continued into December when leaders of the Advanced TV and Digital Video Committees convened to discuss the state of local advertising in the converging TV- digital landscape. The discussion included trends for monetizing local inventory, how particular verticals are tapping the opportunity for audience-addressable media, and how buyers and sellers are responding to challenges in local supply chains.

Audio Everywhere

One out of every 2.4 adults in the U.S. now listens to a podcast every month and media buyers have recognized the opportunity to connect with these fast-growing and highly engaged audiences for both branding and performance, tapping into the intimate relationship podcast creators and hosts have with their listeners.

According to the IAB Podcast Revenue Report released in May, podcast advertising is expected to grow as much over the next two years as it has over the last decade, topping $1 billion in 2021 with expectations to reach $2.2 billion by 2023. Now in its fifth year, the report serves as the industry benchmark for annual revenue while also highlighting new creative trends and monetization opportunities in terms of ad categories, ad type, and content genres.

To bring together podcast leaders, media planners, and advertisers, the IAB 2021 Spring Podcast Upfront titled “Listen Up,” gave brands and agencies exclusive access to the year’s most exciting releases, previews of creative opportunities, and insights that will define the podcast landscape for the next 12 months. In addition to many veteran presenters, IAB also featured “showcase” presentations from a wide range of diverse and up-and-coming publishers whose content is accelerating audience growth.

IAB also launched the first-ever Fall Podcast Upfront in September which offered a timely update on publisher content offerings and a view of late-breaking solutions and innovations in time for the fourth quarter.

While podcasting as a medium is flourishing, challenges endure in getting a commonly agreed-upon set of metrics in the podcasting space. To help set the stage for the Audio Committee’s current focus on measurement, IAB hosted a series of virtual panels entitled “Moving the Measurement Needle Forward” to discuss what is needed to support increased brand and buyer investment in the medium in 2022 and beyond.

Brand Safety and Suitability: News Saves Lives

News has always played a critical role in the lives of consumers as the events of January 6 and the pandemic have laid bare. At NewFronts, on the heels of World Press Freedom Day, IAB featured a discussion called “Real News, Real Brands, Real Trust: The Marketer’s Perspective” that examined the critical importance of objective, quality journalism, and how it also benefits the brands that support it.

In a brand safety and news-focused session of IAB There (the IAB talk show featuring IAB subject matter experts and guests), IAB’s Vice President of the Media Center, Eric John spoke to Vanessa Otero of Ad Fontes and Dan Granger of Oxford Road. They discussed IAB’s News Trust Halo research, the state of accuracy and bias in news media, and how brand safety within news and podcasts is unique. The session also addressed what brands do to protect the future of the digital news industry and the latest brand safety tools from IAB Tech Lab.

Programmatic+Data Center: Data-Driven Marketing Transformation

With the impending loss of third-party cookies and other identifiers, IAB wants to ensure brands and publishers preserve the ability to communicate effectively with their customers. The Programmatic+Data Center is dedicated to defining boundaries, reducing friction, and increasing value along the data chain for consumers, marketers, and the ecosystem that supports them. The main goals of the Programmatic+Data Center are to:

• Drive accelerated digital marketing transformation through emerging technologies
• Advance programmatic growth while supporting media buying for emerging formats
• Lead industry consumer privacy and ethics initiatives
• Define data transparency, quality, and identity to inform measurement and attribution within the supply chain

Key accomplishments of the Programmatic+Data Center in 2021 were focused around three campaigns: The Future of Addressability, The Measurement Imperative, and Privacy Now.

The Future of Addressability

To assess the digital advertising ecosystem’s preparedness for the imminent loss of third-party cookies and identifiers, the Programmatic+Data Center commissioned Ipsos to conduct a quantitative study called the IAB State of Data 2021. The report surfaced significant and actionable insights drawn from a survey of more than 200 data decision-makers within brands, publishers, ad tech, agencies, and data companies. IAB also partnered with McKinsey to conduct a qualitative study that interviewed nearly 30 key data leaders from brands, publishers, and agencies, as well as advertising technology and data companies to better understand how companies will adapt and address the loss of third-party cookies and identifiers. As an extension of the research, a State of Data town hall series explored key findings of the research and addressed identity and addressability, the future of contextual, and measurement.

Data is also the lifeblood of artificial intelligence, and AI and machine learning (ML) are now an essential part of a modern marketer’s toolkit. Already used for audience and product development, creative testing, and measurement, AI is expanding into creative planning, compliance, and privacy, as well as identity management in a post-cookie world.

Released in March, the Artificial Intelligence Use Cases and Best Practices for Marketing guide includes nine use cases spanning internal robotic process automation and data migration for agencies and brand marketers to AI use cases for creative, contextual, video, and more. This was followed by an in- depth guide to Understanding Bias in AI for Marketing.

Finally, to improve transparency and the quality of data, the Measurement Maps Working Group is mapping the key elements that drive video measurement metrics to simplify vexing video measurement questions and standardize the grouping and classification of data to align the industry on terminology, nomenclature, definitions, and data formats.

The Measurement Imperative

IAB is committed to addressing modern management’s expectation of more accountable marketing and media spend.

To discuss the latest consumer-first, privacy-by-design addressable solutions for advertisers and publishers in preparation for a post-cookie world, IAB also hosted Audience Connect which brought together the most influential voices in data, addressability, and privacy. In the same vein, the Identity Solutions Town Halls were devoted to keeping the advertising community educated and informed on various approaches to leveraging first-party data to connect and build trust with their customers.

The Programmatic+Data Center continues to educate the ecosystem on the business impact of the changes in privacy, addressiblity, and measurement. In a series of town halls during October, November, and December called the New Rules for Digital Media, IAB convened the industry to provide guidance and insights for privacy, trust, and transparency; addressability and first-party data; and addressability and measurement. In December the Programmatic+Data Center also launched the Browser/OS Ads Testing Task Force to gather thought leaders and industry experts to strategize new approaches to emerging forms of addressability, crowdsource implementation ideas for browser/operating system-based proposals, share aggregate results, successes, and failures in early testing, and build consensus for collective feedback to browsers and other platforms rolling out new forms of addressability.

Privacy Now

The proliferation of new privacy regulations in the U.S. and around the world is profoundly affecting the way businesses can operate. IAB and the Tech Lab provide legal, policy, and technical compliance frameworks to help advertisers and marketers find new ways to operate their business, address their customers with personalized messaging, and comply with local and global legislation.

Learn more about various projects from the IAB’s Legal Affairs Council—such as the Cross-Jurisdiction Privacy Project (CJPP) Compendium, titled “Privacy Laws & Digital Advertising: Multi-jurisdictional Overview and Implications,” which examines privacy laws of 11 countries, and Project Crosswalk: Addressing CCPA Compliance within the CTV/OTT Marketplace—in our Public Policy & Legal section.

Experience Center: Engaging New Media Consumers in a World of Brand Disruption

The last two years have forever changed the way consumers engage with digital media. To navigate this new world, the Experience Center focuses on emerging platforms and evolving consumer behaviors to help the industry understand and reach the new media consumer. The Experience Center is governed by a flagship Experience Center Board and Marketplace Boards.

• Future proofing and how to reach the audiences of tomorrow
• Innovation-focused buy and sell-side conversations
• Big picture discussions about the implications of technological and consumer shifts for the digital media industry

Key accomplishments of the Experience Center in 2021 were focused around the following campaigns: Brand Disruption and the New Media Consumer.

Brand Disruption

The pandemic has accelerated what was already starting to happen: Consumers have irrevocably changed where and how they shop.

To better understand this evolving landscape, IAB collaborated with The Harris Poll to create proprietary research around the Future of Commerce and Media Consumption. Following that research, IAB hosted the Future of Commerce Brand Salon for brand marketers, an intimate and interactive discussion with brands on evolving consumer shopping behaviors and post-COVID media consumption habits, and a Gen Z Brand Salon, an intimate and interactive discussion featuring an exclusive presentation from Pew research followed by case studies from platforms that have been especially successful with Gen Z.

To make sense of the snowballing effect of changes in digital consumers, digital supply chain management, digital distribution, digital selling, and digital marketing, the Brand Disruption Summit (now in its fourth year) brought together executives from the world’s most innovative companies to discuss proven growth strategies for the modern brand. IAB also released the 2022 Brand Disruption Report, which highlights the acceleration of the storeless economy, the growth of retail media networks, changes in delivery times, big brands adopting the direct-to-consumer (DTC) playbook, and more shifts driven by the DTC economy.

New Media Consumer

IAB is committed to examining the changes—big and small—in what consumers want and need from the media. What experiences will drive loyalty and growth? How must the media reinvent itself for the future?

Part of that reinvention includes augmented reality. Early in 2021, IAB released the AR Buyer’s Guide, a new where-what-how guide that demystifies augmented reality (AR) for marketers, including where to start and how much budget to allocate. It was written for mid to senior-level marketers by AR companies including Meta / Facebook, Google, Snap, TikTok, Unity, and Verizon Media (now Yahoo). IAB also released the Augmented Reality ROI Creative Showcase using creative examples to demonstrate that AR can deliver strong ROI across the marketing funnel and to inspire brands to use AR through demonstrable results. Finally, IAB also launched an Augmented Reality (AR) Marketplace Board within the Experience Center to scale AR advertising through standards as well as increased brand awareness and investment.

The artificial intelligence (AI) that powers voice in marketing has also been rapidly evolving, so the Experience Center formed a working group of unrivaled expertise to make sense of the current landscape. From the latest smart speaker capabilities to synthetic voice, the State of Voice for Brands 2021 report is a comprehensive guide for marketers to harness this nascent but essential technology today. On the heels of the report’s release, IAB also held a virtual event for brands on the topic with guest speakers from the working group and debuted “IAB News” voice functionality for both Alexa and Google Assistant.

IAB Public Policy & Legal: Meeting the Consumer Privacy and Compliance Challenges in a Changing Ecosystem

The digital advertising industry is in the process of becoming a regulated industry, as laws inspired by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—each with their own goals and nuances—expand across the globe. To guide IAB members, the IAB Legal Affairs and Public Policy Councils tackled key challenges IAB members confronted in 2021:

Cross-Jurisdiction Privacy Project

As the open internet continues to increase the availability of ad-supported digital media around the world, IAB members have had to keep pace with increasingly complex international privacy requirements. To assist members in meeting this growing challenge, the IAB’s Legal Affairs Council launched the Cross-Jurisdiction Privacy Project (CJPP) in August of 2020 to explore how the privacy laws of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Singapore, and South Korea apply to the digital advertising industry. Through 2020 and the first half of 2021, more than 150 lawyers from across the globe participated in this project. CJPP contributors included subject-matter experts in digital media from IAB member companies and partner law firms, as well specialist privacy counsel in each of the 11 jurisdictions covered by the CJPP.

The results of the CJPP are impressive. Working across borders, CJPP contributors developed a 500+ page compendium that documents the nuances of local privacy laws and surfaces how they compare to each other, with a tight focus on application to digital advertising.

Further, the CJPP distilled key results from the Compendium into a Legal Specifications Chart. The chart presents a structured comparison of (1) transparency requirements and (2) available legal bases for processing for specified digital advertising activities. This chart is the foundation for the IAB Tech Lab’s continued efforts to develop specifications for a Global Privacy Platform (GPP). In turn, the GPP is expected to provide a framework that enables participants to communicate how they are complying with privacy requirements around the globe. The chart also serves as a companion reference to the compendium for privacy professionals to compare certain requirements for digital advertising.

State Compliance Working Group

The IAB Legal Affairs Council amended and improved the IAB Limited Service Provider Agreement (LSPA)
to provide a clearer way for California consumers to opt out of the resale of their personal information by signatories, and to make it easier for signatories to process deletion requests consistent with the law. LSPA signatories have grown from approximately 600 to 850 companies during 2021.

The working group also closely monitored the advent of Global Privacy Control (GPC), which was written into the CCPA regulations. Then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra pushed the draft GPC specification forward by publicly tweeting support for it and undertook enforcement actions against companies that failed to respond appropriately to the GPC signal. To assist IAB members in keeping pace with and understanding these developments, the Legal Affairs Council released a Global Privacy Controls white paper in August.

The working group is presently focused on preparing for new privacy requirements in California, as well as new privacy laws in Virginia and Colorado. IAB is analyzing how these laws apply to different data flows and will make corresponding changes to the IAB Limited Service Provider Agreement, and propose changes to the U.S. Privacy String.

Project Crosswalk

Project Crosswalk made great strides in 2021. The working group, comprised of legal representatives from members across the connected TV (CTV) and over-the- top video (OTT) industry, met regularly, conferring on the state of data flows and privacy compliance efforts taken in response to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Those efforts culminated in November when IAB released its white paper entitled, Project Crosswalk: Addressing CCPA Compliance within the CTV/OTT Marketplace. The white paper examined stakeholders within the CTV/OTT marketplace, how participants disclose and process personal information, how they view themselves when applying the CCPA definitions and corresponding compliance obligations, whether and what friction points exist when addressing CCPA compliance, and potential solutions deserving further exploration. Leveraging the insights gained from this effort, IAB is working with members to develop industry norms and solutions to help CTV and OTT companies respond to new privacy laws.

Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act and the Impact on Digital Advertising

IAB’s Legal Affairs Council conducted a webinar on Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act which featured lawyers from Davis & Gilbert, The Trade Desk, Ziff Davis, and IAB’s General Counsel. The panel provided an overview of the law and discussed the impact on the industry, as well as offered their insights on practical compliance solutions going forward.

Policy & Legal Summit

The 2021 IAB Policy Summit brought together leaders in media, technology, and government from across the U.S. to debate the most significant challenges facing the industry today. This virtual summit examined the post-election implications for the industry and discussed solutions that enable a sustainable and consumer-centric media and marketing ecosystem in a rapidly changing commercial and political environment. Key topics in 2021 included the importance of building trust in today’s evolving digital landscape, preparing for new privacy laws in 2023 (there are many coming), and making technical sense out of a patchwork of privacy regulation.

IAB Learning & Development and DEI: Developing Talent and Diversity to Accelerate Growth

The world is experiencing an economic, health, and societal crisis that profoundly affects the entire interactive industry and limits the growth of the industry. IAB member companies and industry partners can lead by example—by creating and standing behind principles, best practices, and programs to build and nurture diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, and IAB is a logical source to help drive needed change forward.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

IAB provided access to training to diverse student groups through key partnerships in 2021, and to professionals impacted by the pandemic. IAB also gave students access to IAB tentpole events such as the IAB Newfronts, Podcast Upfronts, and Brand Disruption Summit so that they can get a better sense of our industry.

IAB experts held conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at various events, including The TV Squared podcast, 212NYC: Race Relations in the Advertising Industry Panel, The MAKERS Board, and Google’s cross-industry discussions.

IAB also launched the IAB Inclusion Institute and created three sub-committees. The Community & Engagement Committee creates programs centered around student outreach, readiness and pipeline programs, better diversity recruitment, communication tactics, and mentoring. The Workforce and Workplace Committee develops programs and initiatives to help build cultures of inclusion that support employees, ultimately driving engagement and creating high- performance teams. And with the Apprenticeship Program, IAB has partnered with American Apprenticeships Works (AAW) to create the first-ever apprenticeship program for the digital media ecosystem. As more than half of Americans anticipate looking for a new job over the next 12 months and companies continue to struggle to recruit and retain employees, IAB is proactively creating industry-wide solutions to help organizations with their talent needs.

Talent Development

People are at the heart of our industry, and they need the right tools to succeed. In 2021, IAB continued to build industry knowledge, upskill people, and create solutions that support organizations’ talent needs. IAB strives to provide essential industry skills and knowledge and be the go-to industry resource for professional development—and to proactively advocate for DEI in the workplace across our industry. Key programs from 2021 include:

Talent Development Council

Designed to help our members connect with colleagues at peer organizations, onboard new employees efficiently, create DEI programs that perform, and hire, train, and recruit in a hybrid environment, the Council connects learning & development, DEI, and talent development leaders across the digital media ecosystem.

Student Initiatives

The IAB Inclusion Institute launched Career Days for students to learn from industry professionals and a Student Career Bootcamp to set students up for success in the job search as they enter the industry.

IAB Certifications

The new IAB certification portal was launched in May in partnership with PTI to deliver certification programs. Joint ownership of IAB Certification has helped streamline certification offerings and provides IAB with more support when it comes to servicing and marketing. This will also provide the opportunity for IAB to focus on building exam prep content and offering enterprise deals with a facilitation component.

Licensing IAB E-Learning Courses

IAB offered Digital 360 Suite and Industry Knowledge e-courses for members to license and package into their own learning management system to retain and upskill talent.

IAB Accelerate: Digital Media Apprenticeship

IAB recruited companies to sign up for the first nationwide Digital Media Apprenticeship in partnership with American Apprenticeships Work (AAW) that will launch in 2022 to address diversity in the workforce across the industry and empower employers to hire qualified talent. This apprenticeship is an intense year-long, on-the-job training program that will build the skills and competencies needed to do the jobs of today and tomorrow.

IAB Research: In-Depth Insights and Analysis to Guide The Industry

IAB is committed to investing in essential research to help members and the industry better understand the digital media and advertising trends shaping our industry as well as analyzing where companies are spending money. Major IAB research efforts in 2021 were focused on the state of data and the demise of the third-party cookie, making sense of the ongoing effects of COVID-19 and its effect on digital media, video, and digital ad spending trends, and ongoing research into the effects of the direct brand economy.

In addition to the State of Data Research Initiative with the Programmatic+Data Center and the Economic Impact of the Market-Making Internet study driven by the Public Policy team, IAB also invested in seminal industry research this year including:

IAB Ad Impact Studies

IAB chose to conduct two impact studies in 2021: one in the spring to herald NewFronts, and the other in the fall for the 2022 planning season. These reports capture any top drivers of changes in planning/buying/ strategy and insights into buyer investments and trends. Key findings include:

• 2022 media ad budgets are expected to increase 13% year-over-year.
• The shift to digital continues, with traditional ad budgets projected to lose another 6% in 2022— predominantly from linear TV; the loss will be distributed across digital channels fairly evenly.
• First-party data acquisition/partnerships and measurement are key to buyers in 2022.
• 50% of buyers say their 2022 budgets include greater investment with minority audiences—with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and LatinX audiences getting the lion’s share of that increase.

Internet Advertising Revenue Report 2020

For more than 25 years, IAB has released advertising trend data research with PwC to provide an accurate barometer of overall internet advertising growth. Long considered the industry benchmark for the health of the digital advertising ecosystem, the IAB full year 2020 research (released in April 2021) reported U.S. digital ad revenue at $139.8 billion, which shows continued double-digit growth year-over-year of 12.2%, slightly lower than the 15.9% of the previous year but a testament to the sustained health of the interactive industry despite the pandemic. Additional key findings in the report show video and social media advertising experienced the largest increases year-over-year, taking share from linear TV. Programmatic revenue grew by nearly 25% in 2020.

IAB Outlook Reports

To provide insight into the quantitative findings of IAB’s Ad Impact and Ad Spend/Revenue work conducted during 2021, IAB partnered with PwC to provide two forward-looking Outlook Reports. For each, 20 industry leaders were interviewed individually to explore the rationale behind the quantitative results. Among the key findings are that waning consumer tolerance for (and expectations of) digital advertising is affecting the composition and size of audiences of ad-supported media and entertainment brands. A consumer-centric evolution is upon us and should include the development of new ad formats/resources/partnerships.

Federal government attention, as well as keen focus from this industry, is also required to reimagine and prepare for regulatory changes in privacy policies and additional actions by walled gardens. Additionally, the steep competition and current sense of urgency to attract and grow talent must also be balanced by the need to foster new or elevated corporate DEI policies.

• IAB Outlook: 2021 Digital Ad Ecosystem (March 2021)
• Outlook 2022: The U.S. Digital Advertising Ecosystem (October 2021)

Brand Disruption 2022: IAB Annual Report on the Evolving Consumer Ecosystem

This fifth annual study of the Direct Brand Economy illustrates the snowball effect of changes in digital consumers, digital supply chain management, digital distribution, digital selling, and digital marketing. The report includes both aggregated second-party research and proprietary surveys and interviews to provide those companies which support consumer brands with a playbook for marketing in the future. Among the key insights:

• The storeless economy and the shift to ecommerce have accelerated 200-300% in large part due to the pandemic. Ecommerce is at almost $1 trillion in annual spending and will represent nearly a quarter of all shopping in the next few years.
• Established retailers are wooing disruptor brands with preferential treatment in their retail media networks to fight for the business of Gen Z and millennials, who rarely go to retail to discover brands. Nearly half of big brands (versus 29% of disruptors) spending with retail media networks say retailers are requiring them to buy ads there.
• The barrier between physical and digital shopping is irrevocably gone. Local delivery, click-and-collect, and buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) are up 45%, 52%, and 125% respectively.

2021 IAB Events: Convening Industry Leaders in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape

IAB strives to consistently provide unique thought- leadership and marketplace events to drive the industry forward, tackle pressing issues, and provide future- proof solutions—and 2021 was no exception.

The incredibly successful IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in February 2021 was the largest ALM to date, despite being held virtually, with more than 190 diverse speakers and 2,800+ attendees. IAB also recorded the most-ever event registrations for IAB virtual marketplaces like the NewFronts and Podcast Upfronts as well as IAB thought leadership tentpole events including the Fall Marketplace, which provided a new look at how valuable partnerships are being developed between brands and native digital content and technologies, and Audience Connect, the first-ever marketplace dedicated to identity management and identity solutions.

The Brand Disruption Summit in the Fall of 2021 focused on the growth path for both big, incumbent consumer brands and the rising generation of direct- to-consumer brands and the Policy & Legal Summit convened digital leaders to discuss challenges and solutions facing the media and marketing industry that will enable a sustainable and consumer-centric digital media and marketing ecosystem.

In an incredible testament to resilience and adaptability, the IAB team was able to offer a mix of IAB events both online and in a hybrid model in 2021 that offered industry-wide value, and which were widely acclaimed.

IAB Tech Lab: Standards and Solutions that Advance Global Innovation and Growth

IAB Tech Lab engages a member community globally to develop foundational technology and standards that enable growth and trust in the digital media ecosystem. To accelerate industry innovation and growth, the Tech Lab is producing and helping companies implement global technical standards and solutions for digital media and advertising.

Key Tech Lab accomplishments in 2021 include:

Promoting Open-Source Solutions to Increase Cross-Industry Collaboration

To increase cross-industry collaboration to build transparency and trust in advertising technologies, the Open-Source Initiative is a concerted industry effort to organize and maintain relevant open-source projects in one place. It will provide actual standards implementations that can be directly integrated and tools that can help deploy standards. In addition, the effort will share samples or reference standards to provide best practices for implementation. The initiative is governed by the IAB Tech Lab Architecture Group composed of Extreme Reach, GroupM, GumGum, Oracle, Tapad, and The Trade Desk. It launched with initial code contributions from engineering teams at Google, Index Exchange, The Trade Desk, and Zefr, and includes Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), brand suitability test benchmarks, and ads.cert.

Supporting the Growth of CTV and Cross-Media Video

In 2021, the Tech Lab introduced several new and revised standards to support the growth of CTV and cross-media video including OpenRTB 2.6, which incorporates ad pod features to support CTV buying; Content Taxonomy 3.0 to support contextual buying of CTV content with the introduction of entertainment genres to categorize TV content; app-ads.txt version 1.0.3 to support fraud mitigation in CTV buying; Authenticated Connections for Server Side Ad Stitching (SSAI) to support safe and secure ad serving in CTV environments; and the Programmatic Guide for CTV to inform the use of all the technology standards that are needed for preparing, delivering, and measuring video ads using the programmatic channel.

Advancing Standards for Responsible Addressability and Predictable Privacy

At ALM 2020, IAB and IAB Tech Lab introduced Project Rearc, an initiative to get stakeholders across the digital advertising and media supply chain working together to make the internet a better place for consumers— marrying the value of privacy, personalization, and community. IAB and Tech Lab are now working with more than 20 other trade organizations globally in support of this effort.

As part of the Project Rearc, Tech Lab launched the core standards for responsible addressability and predictable privacy including the Global Privacy Platform document that represents progress toward a Global Privacy Platform (GPP) architecture. The Accountability Platform is designed to ensure that all digital advertising supply chain participants can consistently show that they are adhering to user preferences. The Best Practices for User-Enabled Identity Tokens document establishes guidelines for the encryption and use of user-enabled IDs—notably email addresses and phone numbers—in scenarios when online publishers or marketers offer personalized content or services tied to a user-provided email or phone number.

The Taxonomy and Data Transparency Standards to Support Seller-defined Audience and Context Signaling document proposes an approach to addressability that revolves around the use of anonymized taxonomy nodes—sourced from IAB Tech Lab’s Content Taxonomy 2.x or Audience Taxonomy 1.x—to signal publisher defined context or audience attributes within OpenRTB. The id-sources.json technology adds additional transparency to the supply chain by providing a standard way to identify which companies use and transmit which unique-to-user identifier sources. Tech Lab also assumed management and governance of the UID 2.0 source code as part of the newly launched open-source initiative.

Besides the core standards, the Tech Lab continued the education and awareness campaign for predictable privacy and responsible and accountable addressability bringing together industry experts via the Addressability Solutions Roadshow covering the U.S., EMEA, and APAC regions throughout the year.

Accelerating Global Measurement Infrastructure Progress

Reliable and scalable measurement is essential to a healthy digital ecosystem. The Tech Lab released the Podcast Measurement Guidelines 2.1 with new detailed recommendations for calculating IPv6 metrics, user agent structure, filtering guidance for Apple watchOS user agents, language edits such as typo corrections, and additional podcast player recommendations.

The OM SDK for Web Video Compliance program was also put in place to certify OM SDK for web video certification with over a dozen integrations certified for web browser viewability measurement.

Promoting Supply Chain Transparency and Security

To enhance security in the digital advertising ecosystem by using industry-standard cryptographic security protocols the Tech Lab released the ads.cert 2.0 standard. In particular, the protocols secure buying and selling of programmatic Connected TV (CTV) ad inventory. To help address the challenges around malvertising and nefarious ads by providing transparency around the entities that are involved with publishing such ads, the Tech Lab also released two new buy-side transparency standards: buyers.json and DemandChain Object.

To provide a resource that makes it easy for digital advertising participants—buyers, sellers, and ad tech companies—to see which standards media partners have implemented, their level of compliance, certification program results, and more, Tech Lab announced the initial launch of the Transparency Center as a free resource. The Transparency Center includes Supply Chain Validation that aggregates metadata about the supply chain, including ads.txt (authorized digital sellers), sellers.json, as well as other supply chain management tools; a Global Industry Compliance Registry, which provides detailed industry compliance and certification status of supply chain partners around the world; Advertising System Aggregation which identifies information about supply chain partners across different advertising systems as well as their business classification.

To educate and inform the industry on the proper use of taxonomies, Tech Lab published a Brand Safety Implementation Guide that includes guidance for DSPs, Verification Providers, SSPs, and publishers.

Expanded Compliance Programs to Supercharge Growth

Standards are essential, but so is compliance and compliance programs saw tremendous growth in 2021 ending with more than 120 certified integrations for Open Measurement SDK, 23 podcast measurement certifications with over seven companies certified for the latest 2.1 guidelines, and six companies certified for Data Transparency Compliance. In addition to the Addressability Solutions Roadshows throughout the year, IAB Tech Lab also hosted two key events. First was the CTV & Video Advertising: Growing with Standards on June 9, covering privacy, brand safety, ad fraud, delivery and sales, measurement, and interactivity in connected TV advertising. The second event was the IAB Tech Lab Summit: Renaissance – The Next Generation of Privacy, Addressability & Safety, which focused on how the pandemic lifestyle accelerated the already explosive growth of video streaming and CTV coupled with heightened brand safety challenges for advertisers, global privacy and new data protection regulations, and privacy-first design overhauls of major browsers and operating system platforms.

IAB Global Network: Promoting Global Thought Leadership and Collaboration

IAB and IAB Tech Lab support members’ international agendas by leveraging the strength and collaboration of the IAB Global Network, encompassing 46 IAB organizations. The international team aims to further the overall mission of IAB and to serve the interactive ad industry by advancing global thought leadership, expanding the IAB brand into strategic markets, and encouraging self-regulation, public policy, and the adoption of global technical standards. In 2021, the IAB Global Network focused its efforts on issues that profoundly impact the entire media and marketing ecosystem: digital transformation, consumer privacy, and regulations.

2022 IAB Events

IAB Members: Empowering and Connecting IAB Members

The IAB mission is to empower the media and marketing industries to continue to thrive in the digital economy and help IAB members strengthen these industries. IAB membership comprises more than 700 leading media and technology companies, now also including brands and advertising agencies. We thank all members for their support throughout the year.

Brands     * New Members

General Members

Associate Members

Startup Members

IAB Tech Lab Members

All IAB U.S. general members are automatically members of the Tech Lab. Additional members include:

2021 IAB Committees, Councils & Working Groups

IAB committees and councils are where industry functional leaders and subject matter experts share best practices and develop advanced research on burning industry issues.

These groups include the brightest minds in the industry working together to develop solutions that improve the interactive advertising and marketing ecosystem for everyone.

If you are interested in joining an IAB committee, council, working group, or task force, please contact [email protected]

Experience Center

Media Center

Programmatic+Data Center

Councils

Financial Review: Sustained Investments in IAB Members’ Success

Delivering value to our members is our top priority at IAB and the financial state of IAB started and ended the year strong, allowing us to invest in solutions for growth for our industry and our members.

According to unaudited financials, IAB finished 2021 with $3.6 million net income versus the projected budget loss of $148,000—an incredible achievement and a show of resilience for both IAB and IAB Tech Lab.

Despite another year of tremendous pandemic uncertainty, we were able to support the industry and deliver positive net income well above and beyond what we had planned. Membership dues revenue is projected to be $16.4 million for 2021, versus $15.7 million in 2020. Events at IAB in 2021 are expected to bring in $4.9 million, much higher than budgeted, despite most events being virtual for the second year in a row. This was largely due to our hugely successful virtual events in the first half of the year and the addition of three new events in the second half of the year to address new opportunities for our members: the Fall Podcast Upfront, Audience Connect, and the Fall Marketplace.

Learning & Development revenue totaled $1.2 million versus $1.7 million budgeted, slightly softer than expected but it surpassed its year-end projection by $242,000 driven by a new head of the division and a handful of enterprise deals. The IAB Tech Lab is also expected to bring in a healthy $7.4 million in its sixth year of operation, compared to $6.4 million in 2020, due to growth in membership and the Tech Lab Summit event.

Other bright spots in 2021 were our centers of excellence. The addition of two new boards in the Experience Center, the AR Marketplace Board, and the Games and Esports Marketplace Board, drove an increase in revenue, as did the addition of an Audio Board in the Media Center.

Both IAB and the IAB Tech Lab showed significant savings in employee expenses due to attrition and as we delayed our return to the office in the pandemic. Virtual events, which are less expensive to produce than in-person events, allowed us to realize some savings as well.

Additional ongoing revenue streams in 2021 included initiatives such as sponsored research, member services, international licensing fees, and other fundraising programs. IAB invested these revenues received towards helping member businesses grow and excel. Funding was directed toward producing valuable third-party research and tools for building brands in digital media.

Overall, IAB managed expenses closely in 2021, which are projected to total $26.7 million and closed the year with $3.6 million net income and is very well positioned for an ambitious and fiscally sound 2022.

Who We Are: IAB & IAB Tech Lab

About IAB

Interactive Advertising Bureau
116 East 27th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10016
212 380 4700

The Interactive Advertising Bureau empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership comprises more than 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, IAB develops technical standards and solutions. IAB is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and diversity of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the trade association advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. Founded in 1996, IAB is headquartered in New York City.

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