Trio of Aussie industry associations unite to tackle digital advertising fraud and transparency

The AANA, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Australia and Media Federation of Australia have banded together to work on a common operating standards framework aimed at improving transparency in the digital advertising supply chain.

The trio of local associations said the new working group will look to best practices being developed internationally as well as seek input from the industry to ensure digital advertising standards are universally applicable, practical and relevant to the Australian market. The first meet-up is scheduled this side of Christmas and a full timeline of activities and plans is expected in early 2018.

Concerns about the transparency of the supply chain, along with concerns ad fraud and brand safety, have been gaining apace in the past year as programmatic advertising becomes a predominant form of digital media buying and selling.

In a statement, AANA CEO, John Broome, said many major advertisers, particularly overseas, have moved to introduce standards to ensure they have better visibility over where digital advertising appears.

“However, it is important that all advertisers, both big and small, are better equipped to reduce or eliminate advertising that is wasteful, or worse still, may cause brand reputational damage,” he said.

IAB Australia CEO, Vijay Solanski, noted the organisation has already produced a raft of standards and guidelines around viewability, brand safety and ad fraud. These include the inaugural ad viewability data benchmarks released in December 2016 and based on industry data collected by PricewaterhouseCoopers and supplied by Comscore, Integral Ad Science and Moat.

“But this opportunity to join with the AANA and MFA will enable us to bring these forward to absolute world-best practice for all in the digital supply chain,” he said.

MFA CEO, Sophie Madden, said the working group would draw on the relevant expertise of members and participants will include representatives from major advertisers, media agencies, platform providers and publishers.

“We all share the goal of producing meaningful and actionable standards that will significantly improve brand safety and transparency in the digital advertising space,” she said.

It’s not the first time the agencies have hooked up on new and emerging advertising practices. In late 2015, the IAB and AANA came together to launch new native advertising best practice guidelines aimed at ensuring consumers were protected when it comes to recognising paid-for content.

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