I'm writing this from a center row at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, where President/CEO Randall Rothenberg is lighting the place up. The conversation - no, the manifesto - is all about the F Word: Fraud. After years of politically safe, antiseptic dialogue about transparency, brand safety and other largely-meaningless terms, we're finally calling our problem what it is. It's fraud.
According to Rothenberg, digital advertising will soon surpass broadcast as the biggest single line item on the marketers budget; "Our challenge is no longer about growth; it's the distribution of that growth." It's raining hard, but not everybody is getting wet. And the reason is all about our "porous, plug-and-play supply chain." The fact that any company - no matter how shady - can find its way into the ecosystem with relative ease. "There's plenty of blame to go around," according to Randall: from the publishers buying impressions from uninspected sources to marketers turning a blind eye to the whole issue. Or as it was put so memorably in last week's article in Business Insider: "Our Industry has to stop having unprotected sex." I couldn't agree more, and as one of the IAB's earliest board members, I love the sound of leadership that I'm hearing!
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I've previously written about this issue in The Drift, most notably last year in light of the IAB's full-throated defense of the third-party cookie. I learned then, and know now, that there are a lot of complex dependencies within the ecosystem. Unless the IAB defends the third party cookie, they cede the whole data pie to Google and Facebook; but in defending it, they keep the borders open for the potential bad actors. Hard problem....much work ahead. But the IAB has a sense of urgency. More importantly, a sense of real leadership and purpose.
Language matters. When incoming IAB Chair Vivek Shah put the word "F-R-A-U-D" on the screen yesterday afternoon that mattered a lot. We can only deal with a problem when we leave behind the polite language of ambiguity and call it out in plain terms. We've done that now.
I'll close with something I wrote in The Drift way back in 2002. "On the one hand, we have 'the prime time Internet,' awash with fresh content, clean environments and strong brands. On 'the other Internet' it's always 1:30 in the morning and there's nothing on but F-Troop reruns and per-inquiry spots for the Garden Weasel." The technology, the complexity and the stakes have all grown geometrically. But we're still making the same choice today.
Want to discuss these issues in a small group environment with Randall Rothenberg? He'll be appearing at The Upstream Seller Forum on Tuesday March 4th at the Hearst Building. If you're a CRO, EVP, SVP or VP of sales from a qualified company, reach out to us today for an invitation. Only a handful of seats remain.
