Every year, IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting sets the stage for the advertising and ad tech industries on the most important tech-focused trends. The event included both IRL and virtual components to accommodate comfort levels in these times.
The mood of the in-person crowd was upbeat. It was the first industry event for many in two years, and there were smiles all around.
Programmatic Trends
It’s an important year for digital with several initiatives on the horizon. The looming deadline from Google to deprecate the third-party cookie is set to take effect next year, and marketers may not be prepared for the change. The IAB State of Data Initiative 2022 report, released during the show, indicates a gap between how prepared industry leaders believe they are for the third-party cookie and identifier changes than their organizational readiness demonstrates.
This week Google introduced two new initiatives as it moves away from third-party cookies, including a Privacy Sandbox for mobile and Encrypted Signals for Publishers, which gives publishers the ability to use encrypted identifiers after cookies go away.
Brand safety and suitability were also topics of discussion, with brand suitability pushed to the forefront of where brands should focus attention. The pandemic revealed brand safety practices that put news at a particular disadvantage including broad keyword blocking on terms such as COVID-19 and BLM (Black Lives Matter). Experts discussed the importance for brands to take a highly customized approach to this practice, which may require a bit more effort, but open up larger audiences and scale. Not to mention help to keep a free press in business.
The conversation revealed another challenge for the industry: the demise of local news. Brand safety practices have added to revenue loss for local news and other smaller publishers, which the industry has been experiencing for some time. Other factors include a move by advertisers to “walled gardens” or closed platforms and away from the open web, and a general lack of internal resources at these publishers to keep up with sophisticated programmatic practices.
The Local News Media Consortium is among a group of organizations working to make programmatic a more profitable channel for local news publishers. Last week, the group revealed the results of a test with McClatchy, Lee Enterprises, E.W. Scripps and Tegna on a new identifier NewsPassID, which demonstrated significantly better outcomes for publishers in open programmatic auctions. It’s an encouraging step for the initiative, which still lacks scale but is working on a two-year timetable to gain broader adoption.
Metaverse, Podcasts and Diversity
Buzz is building around the Metaverse, and there were several on-stage conversations devoted to this new medium. A fireside chat with sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson dove into crypto, blockchain and implications for advertisers and gamers, hitting on previously explored themes like transparency and new revenue models.
Another fireside chat with multi-media mogul Charlamagne tha God explored podcasts and the opportunity they bring to creators. In 2020, Charlamagne founded the Black Effect Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame for the success he and his co-hosts achieved for The Breakfast Club, a top nationally syndicated radio program.
The topic of brand safety was raised during this discussion as well, and Charlamagne challenged the audience to consider bias among the advertising community when it comes to more controversial and extremely popular podcasts such as Whorible Decisions, one of the shows on his Black Effect Podcast Network. The show features the sexual escipades of two African-American women and former Wall Street executives, who Charlamange described as being “sexually liberated.”
What’s the difference between these two women and white women who are open about sexuality? It’s an important question.
Broadly speaking, diversity was lacking in the crowd at the conference. As we emerge from a two-year hiatus, it will be interesting to see if we experience a more diverse advertising industry, especially given the many hiring initiatives that were instituted during the pandemic.
IAB ALM showed us that events, as we remember them, are still possible, and important. We look forward to convening again soon.
– Gina Preoteasa, SVP