As an industry forum for collaboration, the Alliance for Audited Media relies on a vast network of industry titans for perspective and leadership. One such group is the Canadian Digital Advisory Committee. The members of this well-respected committee face the challenges of digital media head on in their every day jobs and turn those challenges into opportunities for their companies and clients. In a new series of interviews, several CDAC members discuss how a committee of their peers gives them new perspectives on some of the hot topic issues in digital media and why they think collaboration is the key to solving some of the industry’s nagging challenges.
“Fraud is a major issue for advertisers and marketers, who quite frankly, are becoming increasingly appalled at what is going on in the industry,” explained Edward W. Boyd, CEO of One Advertising Inc. and chairman of AAM’s digital committee. “The industry needs to align and stop fraud. We face enormous peril if we fail to do so.”
Peter Vaz, vice-president at McLaren McCann, agrees, “Fraud is a big challenge because you have so much granularity in terms of what you can track and what you can do. But some bad apples gave it a bad rap and that’s an issue we need to address. I don’t think there is one individual party or organization that can solve the issue, I see this as a combined effort. As an industry organization—especially an auditing organization—I think AAM can play an active role.”
Combatting fraud and creating trust in the marketplace is a top priority. Vesna Moore, director of circulation and CASL compliance officer for Annex-Newcom LP, explains, “If I could change one thing in the digital media industry, I would take away all the uncertainty. I would eliminate all those bots, spam and malware and everything that depreciates the credibility of anything that is online. Credibility is key in our business and ensuring that our clients are reaching the people that we state they are reaching is critical to all of our success.
AAM’s own Steve Guenther, vice-president of digital auditing services, knows there are a lot of steps to effectively combatting fraud. One simple solution is just knowing the person behind the advertising transaction.
“It should be a requirement that we know the businesses we are dealing with before they gain entry to the marketplace,” Guenther explained. “Today, in the digital advertising ecosystem, someone can gain entry just by entering a credit card on a site and, boom, they’re part of the digital advertising ecosystem. There are no handshake deals like in traditional media. You never even know who you’re dealing with. And that lack of transparency is really a detriment to our marketplace.”
Want to learn more about the steps your company can take to make the digital ecosystem a safer place?
• Prepare for new ad viewability standards
• Identify and reduce fraudulent traffic
• Eliminate the bad players hiding behind good technology for overall brand safety
