IAB Global Summit 2015: Highlights

September 30 – October 1, 2015

More than 100 digital leaders from around the world gather for discussions and debates on opportunities, collaboration, and innovation

This year’s IAB Global Summit was the largest yet, bringing together over 100 global leaders from 35 countries for a unique two-day event on September 30 and October 1 at the IAB Ad Lab in New York City, sponsored by Google and YuMe. Focusing on the theme “Global Digital—Creating Opportunity and Innovation around the World,” IAB encouraged active participation with an agenda that included seven town hall sessions, specifically designed to have all participants share their challenges, work together on solutions, and find new inspiration and ideas.

Three of the key takeaways were:

• The IAB Global Network has embraced collaboration with renewed vigor across borders and joint initiatives
• The IABs will improve how they share information among themselves, multidirectionally, and internationally
• Different local IABs are now willing to drive some of the significant international initiatives we agreed to pursue

Adding inspiration and insights to the two days were outside presentations from industry visionaries such as Sophie Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, the Barbarian Group; Frank Cooper, Chief Marketing and Chief Creative Officer, BuzzFeed; and Elizabeth Bailey Weil, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz.

Day 1

Randall Rothenberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, IAB, welcomed the leaders and contributors from around the world to New York City. He set the tone by encouraging the creation of joint conversations across borders to address, confront, and resolve major issues. He  brought to light specific challenges that IAB members, colleagues, and countries around the world are facing today, such as viewability, fraud, and ad blocking.

As ad blocking is one of the most scrutinized topics in the industry today, IAB has ramped up its advocacy and believes that it is time to focus on user experience. So much time has been spent on technology instead of on what is being delivered. The aim needs to be changed to delight, inform, and engage the human being, who is the ultimate end customer.

David Doty, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, and Head of International, IAB, reinforced that the goal of the summit is find the common issues on which the global network can most be collaborative, and then opened the microphone to the summit participants to fulfill the goal of building a truly international platform that benefits IAB and its members.

Alexandra Salomon, Senior Director, International IAB, welcomed all attendees, including IAB Belarus, which is the newest organization to join the IAB Global Network.

She shared two big announcements. The release of “IAB What Works & Why – Global Insights Report,” the second edition in the series that IAB launched two years ago, which explores advertising case studies from 24 award-winning campaigns from around the world and features expert commentary from 28 international digital marketing and media leaders. The report highlights how both art and science are necessary to create great digital marketing that is authentic and resonates with audiences around the world.

The IAB State of the Digital Video World, also released recently, is the first of its kind report, examining the important role that mobile and programmatic play in the digital video marketplaces in19 countries.

The IAB Global Legal Summaries, a resource that answers the need for an online hub where companies interested in doing business in new markets global leaders can find information about regulatory and policy updates, were updated with the addition of posts from Germany, Japan, and Uruguay and now include 25 countries and regions.

Sophie Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, The Barbarian Group, was the first keynote of the day and got the conversation going with a presentation showing that the intersection of creativity and data is the “sweet spot of marketing.” She observed that people often use data to prove a point, but data can also inspire amazing creativity when used in an iterative process. An agency that embraces infiltration of data in the creative process will give birth to different types of creative. She believes it takes courage to embrace the 5-stage iterative model. One should look at best examples where data was infused to create an experience instead of vice versa, as data can inspire amazing creativity.

Constantine Kamaras, Chairman of the Board, IAB Europe, and Vice Chairman, 24 Media, shared highlights from the IAB Europe whitepaper entitled, Digital Advertising in the European Economy, to be released in November 2015 with an event at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, a webinar, and other media outreach. He believes IAB Europe must take its message on the importance of digital for the region’s economy to the European Union institutions and to European capitals in order to help show how digital is a key source for jobs in Europe. Protecting and promoting digital advertising is important for many countries in Europe.

Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Research, Analytics, and Measurement, IAB, shared her learnings from leading the two Economic Impact Study IAB did with Harvard Business School, the most recent in early 2012. These studies proved to be critical educational tools for government and regulators in the U.S. to understand the size of the industry and why self-regulation was important. We found that the ad-supported internet was responsible for 5.1 million U.S. Jobs, and contributed $530 billion, or 3.7 percent of the GDP, to the U.S. economy in 2011 alone.   Mane then moderated a town hall discussion on economic impact studies, which other markets or regions may wish to pursue in order to show their respective markets how important digital is. A key objective is to help quantify the importance of digital in the local economy and its impact on job creation around the globe—so that IABs can communicate to consumers and policymakers alike the opportunity that digital presents. Conversation ensued on the need to share some kind of template or pre-established approach, methodology, and resources to avoid reinventing the wheel for new economic impact studies in different markets. The challenge is to understand the gaps and similarities between the different markets.

Frank Cooper, Chief Marketing and Chief Creative Officer, BuzzFeed, and former CMO of Global Engagement for PepsiCo, Inc., shared a lively presentation on “Crafting a New Marketing Story” that showed how a marketer from a global consumer brand can take a company from a digital start-up to a thriving media and content company. He believes it is vital to make the consumer participate in the branding process. The path to achieve this is by earning consumers’ attention instead of paying for it and by targeting cultural groups. Cooper also put emphasis on designing for mobile since there are over 5.5 billion smartphone users worldwide. He highlighted the need for brands to be meaningful and relevant by embracing new models and cultural shifts, and by using talent, technology, and data. Cooper declared that “the world, as we have created it, is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Scott Cunningham, Senior Vice President, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab, moderated a town hall on the hot subject of ad blocking.  The objective of the discussion was to identify ways to help publishers, agencies, and marketers best protect their interests while respecting consumers’ concerns. Matthias Wahl, President, BVDW (IAB Germany), emphasized that the ad blocking threat is real and growing fast, and the best way to address the issue may be on the technology side. Stéphane Hauser, Délégué Général, IAB France, agreed that ad blocking is a serious issue in France as well and said that IAB France started a task force to restore trust in online advertising by promoting best practices. There was unanimous agreement to move forward with coordinated efforts and a three-pronged approach including:

1) The newly released LEAN principles guiding IAB standards and other technical areas, led by the IAB Tech Lab: LEAN stands for Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported, Non-invasive ads. The program is supported by the Executive Committee of the IAB Tech Lab Board, IABs around the world, and hundreds of member companies. These are principles that will help guide the next phases of advertising technical standards for the global digital advertising supply chain. Scott Cunningham, IAB Tech Lab, is the lead on this initiative.

2) A global charter of good practices in online advertising: Stéphane Hauser, IAB France, will develop a first draft with his colleagues in Europe.

3) A unified message to talk to end users about free ad-supported content: Alice Manners, Chief Executive Officer, IAB Australia, volunteered to drive the international discussions on how to develop messaging for consumers who are using ad blocking technologies.

In the afternoon, Patrick Dolan, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, IAB, spoke about demystifying data and tackling the question of who really owns data. The IAB Data Council and the Winterberry Group put together recent research to this effect in the Marketing Data Technology white paper, and the Data Center of Excellence was recently announced. Jonathan Margulies, Managing Director, Winterberry Group, indicated that people use data in different contexts. The commonality is that digital professionals want more data, and guidance on how to use the data. He said that we all know data is important but not everyone knows why and how to unlock that value.

Mike Zaneis, President and CEO, Trustworthy Accountability Group, discussed what is being done in the U.S. to help combat fraud across the global digital ecosystem. He introduced the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) and explained that the organization’s mission is to create a more trustworthy digital supply chain—one that will increase the entire industry’s value and worth—by fighting criminal activities. The Brand Integrity Program against Piracy was introduced in February in alliance with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). And the TAG Fraud Threat List was launched in May in order to share lists of fraud threat domains to the industry so that companies participating in TAG can more easily detect and prevent fraud. Steve Chester, Director of Data and Programmes, IAB UK, spoke about the effects of fraud specifically in the U.K. He said brand safety is a top priority as well as viewability and fraud. The U.K. established a mechanism to reduce fraud through a joint industry committee for web standards (JICWEBS). The session closed with Zaneis asking the attendees about the level of fraud and malware discussions in their respective countries and if it would make sense to expand a TAG-like program in other countries. Criminal fraud has one definition as non-human traffic and is recognized by Interpol. He welcomed an international discussion and turned to all attendees for their guidance based on their own market needs.

 Elizabeth Bailey Weil, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz, spoke about the top trends the firm sees in Silicon Valley today as well as the collaborative exchange needed between technology companies, agencies, and advertisers to connect the Silicon Valley with Madison Avenue. She shared how her company has funded some new apps that are changing the business and user experience, including Airbnb, GitHub, Lyft, and Slack. Although Andreessen Horowitz focuses more on investments in U.S. companies, she noted that more of these companies are going global sooner and faster than ever before. She explained how her job is to be a translator and to help technology companies know how to get advertisers’ investments by having brands and companies connecting and collaborating.

Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Research, Analytics, and Measurement, IAB, provided a U.S. market snapshot on viewability and cross-platform media measurement. She noted that many publishers, agencies, and advertisers are already using the Media Rating Council (MRC) standard for a viewable impression along with the IAB Viewability Transaction Principles. The recent MRC reconciliation analysis demonstrated the need to move faster at solving the root causes of measurement disparity and inadequacies. And we need to build momentum behind the rest of 3MS (Making Measurement Make Sense) and mobile measurement. Karim Attia, Board Member and Chairman of the Brand Advertising Committee, IAB Europe, spoke about advertiser priorities regarding measurement in Europe with a pan-European viewable impression certification framework. Ron Pinelli Jr., Vice President Digital Research and Standards, Media Rating Council, Inc., emphasized how digital measurement should be more directly comparable to those used in other media. The ultimate goal is to have a currency based on viewable, human-valid impressions that are in target.

Anna Bager, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile and Video, IAB, spoke about The Digital Content NewFronts and explained how it has become a great asset for IAB. Guy Phillipson, Chief Executive Officer, IAB UK, showed how the UK Digital Upfronts were also a success and encouraged other IABs to do similar events in their respective countries. Conversation ensued on how other IABs can take advantage of the astonishing growth of digital video in their respective markets.

Following a lively day of collaborative discussions, attendees made their way to the iconic Loeb Boathouse in Central Park to enjoy a lovely cocktail reception and dinner sponsored by Google and YuMe.

Day 2

Following a networking breakfast, day two of the 2015 Global Summit continued with Alexandra Salomon inviting attendees to continue sharing and actively engaging in the conversations.

David Moore, President, WPP Digital and Chairman, Xaxis, and Chairman, IAB Tech Lab, highlighted the importance of creating scalable, innovative industry standards and guidelines at the global level in order to grow and prosper worldwide. The IAB Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab) is open to all companies that wish to join to have a voice in this global body of decision-making, from across the industry and around the world. Scott Cunningham, Senior Vice President, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Tech Lab, explained the mission of the IAB Tech Lab, described its three pillars of activities—protocols and standards, tools and utilities, and certifications—and gave an overview of the IAB Tech Lab working groups and projects. The IAB Tech Lab is charged with producing and helping companies implement global industry technical standards and solutions for the digital media and advertising industries. The goal of the IAB Tech Lab is to reduce friction associated with the digital advertising and marketing supply chain while contributing to the safe growth of the industry. To support its global members, the IAB Tech Lab plans to have protocols translated into different languages.

Carl Kalapesi, Vice President of Industry Initiatives, IAB, headed a group discussion on programmatic, showing how it is a global technology with local nuances. Ravikumar Shankar, Vice President of Global Business Development, Miaozhen Systems, started off by describing the fragmented landscape in China—depicting the ad spend in China on programmatic as similar to that of the U.S. Alice Manners, Chief Executive Officer, IAB Australia, highlighted the key trends in the Australian landscape where 91% of Australian respondents feel that programmatic will play an important role in the future of digital advertising. Luis Arvizu, Managing Director, Yahoo Mexico and President, IAB Mexico, gave his perspective on programmatic. In the last four years, programmatic advertising has become a reality in Mexico. The pace of the Mexican programmatic ecosystem is slow caused by a limitation in the quality of data available and also in the inventory that publishers are offering. Globally, Programmatic still faces some challenges such as lack of talent, but overall it is continuing to grow.

Christa Babcock, Account Director, Learning and Development, lead a town hall on IAB certifications and professional development. She introduced Michael Theodore, Senior Vice President, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Education Foundation, who presented the current certification programs for sales and ad operations professionals, which have received over 7,500 applicants to date, including some international participation primarily from English-speaking countries, such as Canada, Singapore, U.K., Ireland, and Australia. He also introduced the new Digital Data Solutions Certification that will launch in 2016. Theodore explained the challenges in developing and implementing training programs and IAB certifications around the world. Yet, the IAB team can help local IABs adapt and offer training for their local marketplaces. Babcock then opened the floor to other IAB leaders to discuss their unique experiences with certification and training, and some of the challenges they faced. Suzanne McElligott, Chief Executive Officer, IAB Ireland, shared how they have a small market, yet Ireland is known as the isle of saints and scholars, and many technology companies have chosen to locate their European headquarters there. IAB Ireland offersIAB interactive workshops nd has a unique bespoke in-company training program, which is specifically tailored to business and team’s needs. Olga Britto, Managing Director, IAB Colombia, gave an overview of the current training programs in Latin America, which started in 2013 in nine participating countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. The IABs in Latin America just launched a digital media sales certification program and hope to launch digital ad ops and data certification soon as well.

To close the IAB Global Summit, the final town hall session engaged participants in a discussion on innovative ways to deliver value to IAB members. Cristiane Camargo, Executive Director, IAB Brazil, spotlighted Brazil’s learning platforms and programs tailored to specific member needs, in order to fuel greater member participation. Miranda Dimopoulos, Executive Director, IAB Singapore, revealed that its market’s ad spend is going to hit $365 million U.S. dollars by end of year. Some key inhibitors to digital growth in Southeast Asia are the lack of talent and the confusion around digital metrics as well as a range of limiting laws and policies. Guy Phillipson, Chief Executive Officer, IAB UK, covered IAB UK’s board planning approach from a timetable to a new tool called the Member Engagement Scoring System (MESS). The IAB UK suite of offerings includes member evenings every quarter, advertiser dinners, Digital Upfronts, workshops, and a new Annual Leadership Summit that will be launched in May 2016. Mobile Engage is also now part of Engage as everything is mobile.  The last town hall closed on discussions about the types of IAB member companies, the impact of mergers and acquisitions, and on how to develop a way to keep on sharing ideas and best practices in a centralized manner since thought leadership transcends boundaries and should be freely transferred among IABs.

Salomon concluded the 2015 Global Summit by thanking everyone for participating. With 44 IABs across six continents now, she restated the importance of taking part in this global event. Bringing digital leaders together to share expertise will help continue driving the industry forward.

Released at the IAB Global Summit

Global Insights Report

State of the Digital Video World 2015

Global Legal Summaries