Jon Watts (CIMM) led a conversation with the CEOs of an organization that is helping to manage the JIC (OpenAP) and one that participates in it (the VAB), the EVP of an organization that does not belong to the JIC but has met with it and the CEO of the MRC. The participants clarified their relationships with each other, discussed Nielsen and expressed their hope for the future of television measurement.
The ARF hosted its annual flagship conference, AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2023, on April 25-26, 2023. The industry’s biggest names and brightest minds came together to share new insights on the impact of changing consumer behavior on brands, insights into TV consumption, campaign measurement and effectiveness, whether all impressions are equal, join-up solutions across multiple media, the validity, reliability and predictive power of Attention measures, targeting diverse audiences, privacy’s effect on advertising and the impact of advertising in new formats. Keynotes were presented by Tim Hwang, author of Subprime Attention Crisis, Robert L. Santos of the U.S. Census Bureau, Brian Wieser of Madison and Wall, LLC and Andrea Zapata of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Member Only AccessThe growing use of artificial intelligence in advertising research was the topic of an ARF Town Hall event.
A major new study from DoubleVerify (DV) reports both progress and ongoing problems in digital advertising. Viewability rates are improving while the number of ad fraud schemes uncovered by DV spiked up 70% in 2021.
on the upper right of the web site or create an account to view this page. on the upper right of the web site or create an account to view this page. on the upper right of the web site or create an account to view this page.Google purged itself of 1.7 billion bad ads last year—more than double the number it axed in 2015—a fact which belies a problem set to swell unless more advertisers refuse to turn a blind eye to inflated numbers caused by ad fraud.
To stress the point, Google pointed out that over 1,300 accounts were suspended last year for attempting to game its system by pretending to be news, a trick known as “tabloid cloaking”. Such is the problem that during a single sweep for tabloid cloaking in December 2016, it took down 22 culprits responsible for ads seen over 20 million times by people online in a single week.
Bad ads are disguising themselves as topical news stories for click bait, threatening the integrity of the media industry at a time when fake news is a legitimate concern. Between November and December last year, Google reviewed 550 sites it suspected of “misrepresenting content to users”, including impersonating news organizations, it took action against 340 of them for violating its revamped AdSense misrepresentative content policy. Of that number, nearly 200 publishers were booted out of its network permanently.
“Every player in the ad tech industry—publishers, agencies, marketers, and ad tech providers—must be held accountable and take appropriate steps to eradicate fraud and improve ad quality,” said Marc Rouanet, co-founder and president at Sublime Skinz.
Ad buyers are joining the fight against the “fake news” that many people blame for misinforming voters during the presidential campaign.
Although the focus initially fell on Facebook and Google, where made-up headlines became easy to find, pressure has also come to bear on lesser-known companies that provide the financial motivation for fake news.
Now ad-fraud fighters, usually hired to prevent scam artists from stealing ad budgets with fake traffic, are being asked to help brands avoid websites with real audiences but with fake stories.
“Brand safety” online has historically involved making sure ads don’t appear on pornographic or vulgar websites. That’s changed, as fake news sites have found themselves working with nearly every major player in ad tech.
“This is a new frontier in the fraud war and it came out of a weird place,” said Scott Meyer, CEO of Ghostery. “And it’s going to be a challenge for these companies for exactly that reason.”
IVT (Invalid Traffic Detection) includes hijacked devices, malware, bots, and misappropriated content – all forms of non-human traffic. Kellogg C-level suite executives asked what the company was doing to combat IVT fraud. In response, the firm worked with Krux and comScore to attack and reduce IVT (see deck). The process saved the company an estimated $2 million.
Among the key takeaways: