The Attitudes to Digital Video Advertising survey was first developed by IAB Europe’s Video Task Force and Research Committee in 2016. The study asks advertisers, agencies and publishers from across Europe about their investment and revenue levels by device and format, their objectives and measurement needs, the trends they are seeing in inventory supply and cross-screen planning, and how they see their investment levels evolving in the future.

Register and download the report below:

“Online disinformation is a major social challenge that has exposed the fragility of our democratic institutions,” said Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO. “The exercise of drawing up this Code has confronted everyone involved with the sheer, confounding complexity of the problem. It has shown up the critical importance of enlisting the broadest possible scope of well-meaning actors if we are to have any hope of tackling it, and the limits to what we will be able to achieve if we do not”, warned Feehan.

Cross-industry investment in brand safety and further development of tools with the help of relevant third-party partners can result in substantially diminishing online disinformation. “We are glad to reaffirm our long-standing commitment to brand safety. Giving brands confidence that they are buying authentic inventory and placing ads in a safe environment helps safeguarding sustainability of the digital advertising business model, which at its core supports rich range of information sources for citizens, including quality content produced”, said Feehan.

IAB Europe also encourages continued EU-level investment in research to better understand the scope and nature of online disinformation, and in consumer education, notably in the area of media literacy, to increase people’s ability critically to assess information they receive.

We are looking forward to evangelising our industry about the Code, and to continued collaboration across the digital ecosystem on this major challenge.

Contact

Greg Mroczkowski, Public Policy Manager at IAB Europe (mroczkowski@iabeurope.eu, +32 4830 58 203)

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.

[1] Working Group comprises of the following members: AIM, EACA, EASA, EDiMA, Facebook, Google, IAB Europe, Mozilla, Twitter, WFA.

[2] Communication ‘Tackling online disinformation: a European approach’; https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communication-tackling-online-disinformation-european-approach.

Brussels, 11^th September 2018

Today, the European Authority (the operating division of the European Viewability Initiative, resourced by IAB Europe and EACA) announces the appointment of these three independent, media auditing organisations to undertake annual technical measurement audits of any company providing viewability measurement services across Europe. This will enable viewability measurement companies to achieve appropriate European accreditation (via a Certification Seal), recognised by all markets in the region and removing the need for further national accreditation. In turn, it will also complement the drive for higher quality standards in digital advertising across all markets.

This decision follows a Request for Proposals (RFP) process in which seven experienced auditing companies submitted detailed responses. The subsequent RFP evaluation process was led by the key stakeholders of the European Authority with expert support from the Technical Committee, appointed by the European Viewability Steering Group (EVSG).

The approved auditors were determined by a series of factors, including - clear demonstration of expertise and capabilities, sophisticated audit methodology and competitive pricing structure. Each of the 3 auditors will work closely with the European Authority along with the appropriate National Authority (i.e. cross-industry bodies in the UK - JICWEBS, Germany - AGOF/BVDW and France - Digital Ad Trust). In turn, each viewability measurement company will be able to select their preferred auditor.

The European Authority will grant licence agreements to the auditors on the basis of the proposed audit methodology and cost forecasts outlined within the respective RFP submissions. The immediate next step will be the delivery, by each auditor, of an effective ‘real-world’ audit test environment. The European Authority & associated Technical Committee will review and approve each of these test environments in advance of any audits being undertaken.

The purpose of the audits is to evaluate the performance of the technical approach offered by the viewability measurement companies according to the requirements of the European Viewability Measurement Principles (developed and published by the EVSG). Following each audit, the chosen auditor will produce an Evaluation Report – summarising the results to enable the European authority to assess whether a European Seal of Accreditation should be issued for the viewability measurement tool under scrutiny.

In the few markets where a national viewability certification process already exists, the European Authority is working with the relevant stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition and adoption of the European Certification Framework.

This Framework has been designed to offer a consistent solution across all

European markets - irrespective of the existing status quo. In the interests of contributing towards the development of consistent, global standards the European approach should also provide useful guidance for other regions or markets seeking to develop similar solutions.

Quotes on behalf of key stakeholders involved

Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor, IAB Europe said: “The appointment of these auditors is the key next step in the implementation of the European Viewability Initiative. Agreed standards and third party auditing are vital for a healthy digital ecosystem and we look forward to measurement companies taking advantage of this certification to drive their business across the region and beyond.”

Jon Chase, Board Director and Chair Media Agencies Council, EACA noted: “EACA remain fully committed to driving improved viewability measurement standards across Europe and beyond. We look forward to partnering with the chosen auditors to undertake Europe-wide audits. In turn, providing cross-industry approved certification of the multiple viewability tools. Another crucial step towards enhanced accountability and trust in digital media metrics.”

Richard Foan, Chair at JICWEBS in the UK added: “By agreeing which auditors are asked to undertake reviews the European Viewability Initiative takes another important step for European harmonisation and simultaneously contributes towards global standards for local markets. JICWEBS will continue to play its part in progressing this initiative and working with other stakeholders to address the remaining transition related questions”

Thomas Duhr (Vice-President at BVDW) said on behalf of the cross-industry team at BVDW-AGOF in Germany: "We are fully supportive of this European Viewability initiative that brings together relevant stakeholders - marketers, media agencies, measurement service providers - to help improve quality assurance across the digital advertising industry. In turn, it will be a key part of the Digital Trust initiative in Germany developed as a basis to establish a uniformly high level of marketing quality.”

Jean-Marie Le Guen (Director General, IAB France) commented on behalf of the Digital Ad Trust in France: “The selection of auditors is a major step in the development of a consistent approach in the auditing of viewability measurement services across Europe. The appointment of carefully selected auditors will provide greater transparency on the market and will allow stakeholders to make sure their viewability measurement tools meet the best performance standards. Digital Ad Trust members are committed to developing transparency and accountability to increase trust and create value for all stakeholders and, as such, fully supports the European Viewability Initiative.”

Valerie Morrisson, Managing Director, CESP, added: “Moving from served to viewable impressions ranks among the top priorities for all stakeholders, as shown in IAB Europe’s annual Report ‘Digital Brand Advertising and Measurement’. I’m pleased to see that EACA and IAB Europe have managed to convince the European countries to join forces to create a pan-European certification process to support this important move for the industry.”

Simon Redlich, Chief Executive at ABC, said: “We’re pleased to be appointed by the European Authority as an independent auditor to support this pan European initiative. Our well established viewability testing processes are recognised for delivering consistent, comparable results and we remain committed to increasing transparency and trust in this area.”

Professor Wolfgang Lehner from GWT-TUD noted: “We are excited to be appointed as one of the official auditors for the European Viewability Initiative. We look forward to providing transparent and objective audits of the viewability measurement tools.”

European Authority representatives

IAB Europe:

• Alison Fennah, Executive Business Advisor, IAB Europe
• Marie-Clare Puffett, Business Programmes Manager, IAB Europe

EACA:

• Jon Chase, Board Director and Chair Media Agencies Council, EACA

Links to relevant documents

• European Viewability Measurement Principles
• Overview of the European Viewability Initiative
• European Viewability Initiative: Q&A related to the press release

Contacts

For further information regarding this initiative, please see below contact details:

EACA (European Association of Communications Agencies)

Jon Chase (Board Director and Chair Media Agencies Council, EACA)

jon.chase@eaca.eu

+44 (0) 7899 657862

IAB Europe

Alison Fennah (Executive Business Advisor)

fennah@iabeurope.eu

+44 (0) 7712 645263

Marie-Clare Puffett (Business Programmes Manager)

puffett@iabeurope.eu

+44 (0) 7805 819 373

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.

www.iabeurope.kinsta.cloud |       @IABEurope  |        IAB Europe

About EACA 

The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) represents more than 2,500 communications agencies and agency associations from 30 European countries that directly employ more than 120,000 people. EACA members include advertising, media, digital, branding and PR agencies. EACA promotes honest, effective advertising, high professional standards and awareness of the contribution of advertising in a free market economy and encourages close co-operation between agencies, advertisers and media in European advertising bodies. EACA works closely with EU institutions to ensure freedom to advertise responsibly and creatively.

www.eaca.eu | @EACA_eu | info@eaca.eu

About ABC

ABC delivers a stamp of trust for the UK media industry. Owned and developed jointly by UK media owners, advertisers and agencies to set industry-agreed standards for media brand measurement across print, digital and events. ABC is also a trusted verification provider - auditing media brand measurement data and the adoption of good practice and process to industry-agreed standards. Established in 1931, ABC was the first UK Joint Industry Currency (JIC) and founding member of the International Federation of ABCs.

www.abc.org

 About CESP

CESP (Centre d’Étude des Supports de Publicité) is a non-profit organization created in 1957, regrouping the different stakeholders of the French media industry: media owners and their sales houses as well as media agencies and advertisers. CESP conducts two main types of missions: audits in France (for all media currency studies) and abroad, and consultancy missions locally and internationally. Eighteen permanent staff work at CESP and are supported by a high profile Scientific Committee of 16 professionals from the academic and media industry fields, involved in all audits carried out by CESP.

www.cesp.org

 About GWT-TUD

GWT-TUD GmbH is a R&D service provider headquartered in Dresden. Founded in 1996, GWT-TUD GmbH works at the interface of public research institutions, like TU Dresden, one of eleven German Universities of Excellence, and industry. With more than 500 projects per year, totaling over 25 million euros in volume, the company is among the top technology transfer organizations in Germany.

https://gwt-en.wp.mpkunden.de

There is a disparity between vision and reality in measurement of digital brand advertising campaigns, according to the latest IAB Europe Digital Brand Advertising and Measurement Report.

IAB Europe hosted a webinar to dive deeper into the findings of the report including digital measurement priorities across stakeholders, metrics for determining digital advertising quality and KPIs for determining digital brand advertising success.

Watch the recording HERE to find out more about:

• Digital measurement priorities
• Insights that enable effective targeting of brand advertising campaigns
• KPIs for determining digital brand advertising success

You can also browse through or download the presentation deck HERE.

Access the latest version of the interactive version of the guide here or download the new PDF version below.

IAB Europe Transparency Guide PDF

The draft Code was developed by a Working Group designated by DG CONNECT in the context of the Multi-stakeholder Forum on Disinformation (‘Forum’), of which the Working Group is part. IAB Europe is a member of the Working Group.

The draft Code will now be reviewed by the advisory group of stakeholders within the Forum, the Sounding Board, whose feedback is expected during September[2].

The Forum was formed upon the recommendation deriving from the Commission’s Communication on tackling online disinformation published in April 2018, building on the work of the High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and Disinformation convened by DG CONNECT in January 2018.

“The legitimate online ecosystem provides an infrastructure that can be misused by bad actors to deceive and confuse citizens, making it more difficult for them to make fact-based judgments, and ultimately undermining our democracies,” said Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO. “The same ecosystem is also a powerful platform for the democratic dissemination of information and views. All stakeholders need to work together to reduce the opportunities for misuse. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in this exercise under the leadership of DG CONNECT.”

Though all manifestations of online disinformation do not leverage, or relate to, advertising, it is important to acknowledge the real-life scenarios where digital advertising may facilitate the creation and propagation of disinformation, for example, by inadvertently enabling the placing of legitimate advertising on websites enabling disinformation. “IAB Europe members are committed to continuing to invest in brand safety tools that reduce or eliminate such ad misplacement, because it is the right thing to do and is in the best interest of the brands involved”, said Feehan.

IAB Europe encourages continued EU-level investment in research to better understand the scope and nature of online disinformation, and in consumer education, notably in the area of media literacy, to increase people’s ability critically to assess information they receive.

We are looking forward to hearing the Sounding Board’s views on the draft Code, and to continuing to collaborate with others across the ecosystem on this major challenge.

Contact

Greg Mroczkowski, Public Policy Manager at IAB Europe (mroczkowski@iabeurope.eu, +32 4830 58 203)

About IAB Europe

IAB Europe is the leading European-level industry association for the digital media and advertising industry. Its mission is to promote the development of this innovative sector and ensure its sustainability by shaping the regulatory environment, demonstrating the value digital advertising brings to Europe’s economy, to consumers and to the market, and developing and facilitating the uptake of harmonised business practices that take account of changing user expectations and enable digital brand advertising to scale in Europe.

[1] Working Group comprises of the following members:  Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, EDIMA, EASA, WFA, AIM, IAB Europe, EACA.

[2] Sounding Board comprises of the following members: EBU, EFJ, NME, ACT, EPC, AER, EMMA, ENPA, BEUC, IFCN, Poynter, Bilyana Petkova (Maastricht University), Oreste Pollicino (Bocconi University), Giovanni Riotta (LUISS/Princeton University), Ravi Kiran Vatrapu (Copenhagen Business School).

The Report draws on a survey of approximately 650 buy and sell-side stakeholders from across Europe1. The results echo the findings of the 2017 IAB Europe Digital Measurement Priorities Report2 highlighting that industry-wide solutions are yet to be agreed for cross-media measurement and quality metrics.

Cross-media and cross-device measurement is key; both buy and sell-side stakeholders indicate that cross-media evaluation and a better understanding of how digital works in combination with other channels are important to drive more digital brand advertising investment. This is further supported by the fact that the top key performance indicators that stakeholders want to use for digital are those associated with traditional media, e.g. brand awareness and purchase intent. Indeed, online video, a popular format for digital branding campaigns saw growth of 35% according to the IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark 2017 study.

As per ongoing industry discussions, viewability and brand safety are top of mind when it comes to determining contact or environment quality. All stakeholders agree that increased trading on viewable rather than served impressions is important.

IAB Europe is hosting a webinar to dive deeper into the findings of the report including the current digital video adoption, drivers, challenges and strategies of both buy and sell-side stakeholders.

• Current adoption of digital video advertising
• Objectives and measurement
• Supply of digital video inventory
• Future of digital video advertising

WATCH THE RECORDING HERE

Confirmed speakers:

Ben Geach (presenter) Director Global Product Strategy Oracle	Caroline Hugonenc VP Research Teads	Paul Astbury Head of Specialist Sales Integral Ad Science	Melissa Roberts Head of Video Market Development EMEA AppNexus

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

We are also surveying the industry about the current drivers and concerns that are impacting programmatic investment – take part here.

WATCH THE RECORDING HERE

The report is based on a survey of 450 advertisers, agencies and publishers from across 31 markets. It aims to provide clarity on the status of adoption and buy-side and sell-side perspectives on the development of digital video and trading methods.

The second wave of this research shows that:

• Digital video advertising is mainstream whilst linear TV investment dominates advertising budgets
• Mobile has overtaken desktop and is now the key device for digital video advertising investment
• The supply of digital video advertising inventory is still being established with skippable inventory catching up with non-skippable
• Direct trading is the dominant trading mechanism for digital video advertising
• In-stream continues to drive digital video advertising investment
• Brand KPIs and metrics are key to measuring digital video advertising success
• Investment in digital video advertising is set to increase

Find out more by downloading the report below.

The signatories to the paper are aware of the fake news and online disinformation phenomena and are highly concerned by the issue. Since online advertising is the main source of revenue for the diverse media landscape in Europe[1], the stakeholders reaffirm their industry-wide commitment to work towards ensuring that we support quality journalism and cutting off the financial incentives to fake news providers.

The letter comes as part of IAB Europe’s response to the European Commission’s public consultation. The Commission is expected to publish its EU-level strategy regarding this issue in spring 2018.

Read and download the full paper HERE.

[1]IHS Markit, The Economic Contribution of Digital Advertising in Europe (2017), available at: https://datadrivenadvertising.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2017/09/DigitalAdvertisingEconomicContribution_FINAL-1.pdf. The latest research shows that this revenue source makes up more than 81% of the online revenues for publisher’s journalistic content and more than 50% of mobile application revenues.

The Report draws on a survey of 700+ buy and sell-side stakeholders from across Europe¹. The results echo the findings of the first IAB Europe Digital Measurement Priorities Report² highlighting that industry-wide solutions are to be found across these areas. This is particularly important in the context of the fact that digital ad spend now leads TV by over €7bn³ and investments in programmatic advertising continue to increase. The top three priorities coming out of the 2017 survey are:

1. Cross-media measurement
2. Integration with programmatic tools
3. Viewability and brand safety for underpinning quality digital advertising

To find out more about IAB Europe’s work in these key areas join the following events:

• IAB Europe panel at dmexco - Measurement and the Future of Digital Trading, 14^th September. Find out more here.
• IAB Europe Virtual Programmatic Day, 9^th November. Find out more here.

Please click below and enter your details to download this Report.

Some of the key topics covered include:

• Bridging the divide between TV and digital to realize the value of cross-platform media planning and buying
• The shift in media planning beyond age and gender towards the use of advanced audience segments
• Addressing mobile measurement challenges to improve monetization and give digital media a bigger seat at the table
• The challenge in measuring unduplicated reach across platforms, including distributed content platforms, to help publishers better articulate their value to advertisers
• The value of moving beyond digital ad viewability to focusing on the metrics that matter like campaign reach and frequency, as well as attitudinal, behavioral and sales lift
• Advancements in sophisticated, multi-touch advertising attribution that better illuminate what’s working so that marketers can allocate their budgets more efficiently

You can download the report off the comScore website here.