The International Breakfast Session, which was started a few years ago, has now become a key discussion during the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. Taking place on the closing day of the conference in Phoenix, Arizona, the session gathered over 50 digital advertising leaders from 11 countries to discuss the pressing issues facing the industry and how we can work better together to advance our common interests.
Two very lively conversations were the focus of the morning, in addition to the newly released research in partnership with BabyCenter and the IAB multinational research: The first was an open International Town Hall on mobile integration, and the second was a chat on Viewability.
“Everything is mobile,” explains Guy Phillipson, CEO, IAB UK, “and we are clearly in a period of global mobile exponential growth.” Although the UK now sees mobile dominates digital time, many other countries are not far behind, from a shift in consumer behavior to one in digital ad spending. As such, it is not surprising that global media owners are considering cross screen strategies to be vital even though monetization remains a key challenge.
The challenges publishers are faced with are not necessarily country specific. Issues such as access to subscription data, tracking consumers on mobile devices, targeting and frequency capping are real problems in many markets. Certainly, regions like Southeast Asia face additional hurdles compared to Europe as the diversity from country to country is remarkable and although mobile is at the heart of what IAB Singapore has to offer, lobbying for standards and setting policy is primordial.
It also came to light in this discussion that as IABs around the world address mobile integration, it does not always make sense to have mobile broached separately from the rest of the digital landscape. The same is true with digital video, which is becoming increasingly important, as is the need for content and advertising to be constructed in a different ways (ie shorter). It was also interesting to hear how even the definition of mobile isn’t always as clear-cut as one would expect. IAB Canada, Vice President, Operations, Julie Ford, suggested separating smartphones from everything else maybe a better approach.
As Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB, points out, maybe we are seeing a return of interruptive advertising because of mobile. Where it used to be one of the worse kinds of advertising, cluttering the screen, the remarkable success of mobile is that it puts ads in the middle of the content. Native or in-stream advertising in mobile can in essence be compared to television ads or even magazine ads.
There was a solid agreement from everyone present on the need to better understand the multi-screen evolution, what meets consumers’ needs and what works for advertisers. And clearly the need for research in terms of screen sizes and their impact as that is an important part of creating effective advertising. From IAB Canada’s html5 webinar series to the work IAB is doing this year on establishing new responsive standards, it is evident that the key is to get agencies and advertisers on board by understanding the impact of mobile advertising and not just looking at mobile from a technology standpoint.
The chat on Viewability was equally vibrant.
Lou Paskalis, SVP, Enterprise Media Executive, Bank of America, and Julian Zilberbrand, EVP, Activation Standards, Insights & Technology, ZenithOptimedia, were joined by Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Research, Analytics, and Measurement, IAB, and actively engaged everyone in the breakfast on what planning and trading on a viewable metrics means and how we as a global industry are not ready for this yet, until the issue measurement has been tackled.
Again, not limited to the U.S. market, there are fraudulent actors in the digital advertising ecosphere and it is completely understandable that advertisers do not want to be paying to send a message out to consumers that is never seen. As Julian pointed out, that would just be a waste. What it comes down to is the opportunity to have consumers receive the message and for it to be viewed. Sherrill underlined that Viewability is important for everyone’s KPIs, and it is more than planning and buying media, it is knowing the value so that you can build models based on more than air.
From all corners of the world, there is a lot of noise out there about Viewability but until there is clarity and agreement on measurement, we are functionally in a period where the focus needs to be on tracking. Conducting business on viewable impressions does not make sense today. Most publishers don’t have systems in place to manage Viewablity and as Julian pointed out so well, this is the year they need to push technology partners for a solution. And tying in to our earlier conversation about mobile, Lou pointed out that not only does the counting process need to be addressed overall but given that mobile is at the center of what so many are doing now, mobile Viewability aught to be fast-tracked.
If you would like to get engaged with the IAB Global Network, be sure to save the date for the next significant event, IAB Global Summit, to be held in New York on September 30 and October 1, 2015. In the meantime, you can learn more at iab.com/global and browse the full IAB Global Network Facebook photo album here.
