IAB blog

Nick Stringer

Over the last few months I’ve written a number of blogs about the Digital Britain project, the Government’s blueprint for the UK’s digital economy.  This kicked off last November with a blog arguing that the internet will help the UK economy out of its current recession, followed in late January with the first in the series of ‘Digital Britain…kindly brought to you by advertising’ blogs (this is the second!) which highlighted the Government’s underplaying of the role and value of advertising to the digital economy in its interim report.  In late February, I talked of the ‘green shoots of opportunity’ and the Government’s failure - in its interim report - to recognise the UK as one of the best places in the world to do ‘digital business’.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently submitted its response to the interim Digital Britain report calling on the Government to:

·         Recognise the importance of fostering the advertising market in order to continue attracting investment from pan-European businesses in the UK.

·         Acknowledge the importance of new advertising techniques (such as behavioural advertising) in building strong revenue streams for digital media.

·         Support a market structure allowing new entrants to easily develop ad-supported business models rather than create high barriers to new entry.

·         Clarify the significant body of self-regulation and good practice already in existence and commit to intervene only when it will deliver enhanced outcomes for consumers.

·         Acknowledge the value of novel self-regulatory schemes, such as the recently published IAB Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising, and offer support for these schemes to encourage other players to make similar commitments.

The final Digital Britain report is expected in the summer (although speculation has mounted that it might come earlier - ambitious!).  Whilst I acknowledge the importance of Lord Carter’s ‘top five goals’ (universal connectivity, faster broadband, spectrum liberalisation, resolving the online piracy issue and the role of public service broadcasting/publishing in a digital age), we hope that the Government will also examine the wider digital economy (not just infrastructure issues - 11 of the 22 action items in the interim report) as it would surely be a strategic error to create the circumstances for universal broadband connectivity without fully acknowledging the role advertising plays in supporting the vast majority of the content, services and applications delivered to consumers via broadband.

We’ll get a better idea at the Digital Britain summit in London next week (but where are the new media speakers?).  Look out for the IAB Twitter feed providing you with the latest!

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