Watch all video interviews from the 2010 IAB Annual Conference.
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By the time we got to Thanksgiving last fall, the drumbeat emanating from Washington to regulate our industry became too loud to ignore. Initially, not everyone took notice of FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz’s warning that this was the industry’s last chance to show self-regulation will work. But, by December 7, the first FTC “Exploring Privacy” Roundtable took place in Washington, and it became clear even to non-believers that our industry had better get its act together, or else.
Thankfully, the IAB and it’s Cross-Industry Coalition partners (ANA, 4A’s, DMA and CBBB) have been out ahead on these issues for more than a year, culminating with their Self-Regulatory Program that was announced in July of 2009. Randall Rothenberg characterizes the threat to our business in dramatic, if not visceral terms. “There are forces out to destroy us,” he cautioned in a recent interview. We have one last chance as an industry to get this right. The National Advertising Review Council (NARC) has issued an RFP on behalf of the Coalition for technology providers to support an industry-run self-regulatory platform. We have no excuses now but to get this right.
NARC has been running successful advertising self-regulatory programs for more than 30 years. This should tell us that our industry needs to regard this RFP as a sign that we’re really growing up – or that we had better grow up fast in order to be taken seriously as a more effective means for brand advertising. Every industry eventually figures out the right level of regulation to engender the trust that the government and consumers need. That time is now for online advertising, which is what makes the NARC process so essential.
This NARC opportunity gives the best brains working within interactive media a chance to finally develop a meaningful technology platform to keep our industry growing. There are multiple studies that demonstrate how much pent-up demand there is for more brand dollars coming online if only the privacy concerns would go away.
Supporting this is the roster of brands and agency holding companies that have signed on as Design Partners for our company, Better Advertising. When you take in the breadth and aggregate power of GroupM, 24/7, Omnicom, Interpublic Group, Vivaki, Havas, Fox, and others, you begin to understand that beyond the “stick” of regulation or self-regulation hassles lies the carrot: serious brand dollars coming online to grow our industry. These partners and other advertisers, agencies and networks all understand that we can only get there if there is a common technology platform.
This is the “how,” that NARC is deciding on now. The “what” is up to all of us in the industry – so ask yourself – what are you doing to help? Are you doing business with any bad actors? How transparent are the data collection and use practices of the networks you buy your media from? Does your agency have a strong grasp of the magnitude of what’s going on? We’re all in this together, so we all need to support transparent solutions – or pay the price, together.
