Search results matching tag 'Behavioural advertising'

Education, education, education (part three...and final)

2175094 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:40:00 GMT

I’ve banged the drum in previous weeks about the importance of consumer education about behavioural advertising, and the IAB's recent research has highlighted the need for this.

Today the IAB has published a guide on behavioural advertising specifically for industry, our first step in helping educate the market about this practice (although you’ll be glad to know that this will be my last blog – for now - talking about education). The guide explains how behavioural advertising works, how it differs to other types of targeted advertising on the internet, its benefits to web publishers and advertisers, consumer attitudes as well as online privacy and industry good practice.

The guide – sponsored by technology company Audience Science – hasn’t been written exclusively by the IAB but by the experts themselves, with contributions from the likes of AOL, Guardian, Profero, Post Office, Yahoo!, ValueClick Media and, of course, Audience Science.

It may not make the Amazon bestsellers list (its free after all) but for anyone who wants to know a little more about behavioural advertising, this one’s for you. Enjoy!

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Education, education, education (part two)

2175094 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:45:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of informing and educating consumers about the internet. This followed a revamp of the IAB’s website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – aimed at helping internet users understand online behavioural advertising, how it works and how to switch it off if they want to. Today the IAB, in partnership with business law firm Olswang, has published new research confirming that consumers need (and want) more information and education about online privacy and the practice of behavioural advertising.

The research confirms that consumers today are far more trusting of the internet as a medium, compared with more than five years ago. People – particularly young people – are more comfortable with sharing their personal information with shopping websites, banks and social networking sites. But there’s no room for complacency: consumers may be more acclimatised to the internet and the role it now plays in our everyday lives but they also want to have it on their owns terms and wish to know more about new digital marketing techniques, such as behavioural advertising.

72% of internet users are – unsurprisingly – unaware about behavioural advertising, how it works and what information is collected and used. However, the research results are particularly enlightening when consumers are provided with the relevant information. For example:

• 81% of internet users do not know the level of control they actually have over behavioural advertising, such as their right to switch it off.
• 74% of internet users are actually more comfortable with behavioural advertising when they are provided with information about what data is collected and used and how it can be controlled.

Behavioural advertising remains a relatively new online practice. As the Government’s Digital Britain report acknowledged it is an important business model to help web publishers convert “creativity into value”. Industry needs to find a balance between making advertising more measurable and effective whilst protecting consumer privacy. It’s a balance that the IAB, its members and the rest of the advertising industry is working to get right and education – as this research very clearly shows – needs to be at the heart of it.

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Education, education, education (part one)

2175094 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:01:00 GMT

It's official: us Brits love shopping online. According to research by price comparison service, Uswitch, 93% of the UK population now shop on the internet (I think that’s 93% of the 2,500 adults they surveyed!). And, as consumers continue to ‘connect’ so advertisers increasingly look to the internet as a platform to get their messages across and sell their wares. The two are mutually beneficial. Some of us just can’t get enough of all this (it’s empowering and addictive). For others the tide of change is uncomfortable and some need help getting connected in the first place (and there’s no one better than digital entrepreneur and Government Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox, to make this happen).

So, it’s important to inform and educate people about the internet. This is not a new message: government, Ofcom and others, including industry, have spearheaded campaigns to help people – particularly parents and children - better understand online and its significant benefits but also the challenges it throws up in our everyday lives. Understanding how to keep safe and secure is lesson number one and many schools build this into their curricula activities as they integrate the use of the internet into children’s learning.

This week the IAB has revamped its consumer website dedicated to explaining behavioural advertising: www.youronlinechoices.co.uk. We launched this site when we published our Good Practice Principles earlier this year to govern the practice. One of the three key commitments is education and many of the businesses involved continually go to great lengths to provide consumers with helpful information. Our website builds on these: providing easy-to-understand information on behavioural advertising, how it works and the role it plays in helping make online content, services and applications available at little or no cost. This is backed up by the other commitments: transparency about what information is collected and used to deliver more relevant advertising as well as the opportunity to opt out or switch it off. So the new website includes a centralised page for consumers to visit to opt out of behavioural advertising by the businesses that are complying with the IAB’s Good Practice Principles. Our future aim is to make this even more user friendly.

The launch of the website marks the point that those businesses that have signed up to the Good Practice Principles and have live commercial UK operations are complying with the commitments. To complement this, each of these businesses’ compliance will be independently verified by auditor ABCe to provide greater assurance in this practice. This is key but its only by explaining clearly what this is all about and how it all works that we can really expect consumers – heavy or light internet users – to accept and understand why we’re taking this approach.

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Online is now number one in the UK

980161 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:47:00 GMT

Online commands respect : Another IAB Ad Spend report, another milestone for online – this time the big one

We released the IAB Ad Spend results today, with the record breaking news that not only has Ad Spend grown again – as it has every half year since we launched the survey in 1998 – but we have finally done what media pundits have been guessing and betting on for years. That is we are now the largest medium in the UK, with 23.5% share of all media spend now being spent on online display, classifieds and search. We are larger than TV not by a fraction, but by £113.6 million. We are also now larger than press display by £369 million.

We know that this is happening in a strange market however, with rumours that TV prices are back to 1980s levels (so it’s not just fashion that’s harking back to the good old days of Dynasty-style shoulder pads and studs, but TV prices too) and constant press stories decrying the fall of print circulations, all too often ignoring some of the success stories bucking the trend in both of these media. But the important thing for us here at the IAB, and the reason why we are very proud of our industry, is the proof that when the going gets tough, online can more than hold its own against other media. Budgets are being cut and prices are falling, but online is maintaining and growing its importance in the media budget.

Just to put the sceptics point of view across, we do present the data splitting press display and classified, so press combined is still the largest media. And we do include search in our figures, which some commentators are quick to point out is maybe not fair when comparing this to display media in particular. But the rise of search agencies with large blue chip clients spending their large blue chip client marketing budgets shows that this is not just an online directory service, it is a core part of the total media and brand marketing mix, not just the online bit. And even though online display did fall a bit on this time last year, though only by 5.2%, it remains the most successful display media in growth terms, with all other display media falling dramatically in this recession, with only cinema at 7.8% decline also getting away with single figures declining growth rates.

At £317 million for the half year to June 2009, online display is showing its strength and we expect it to ride out the rest of the recession well against other display formats. This is an exciting time to be selling online display, as new methods of targeting, behavioural advertising and reach measurements are becoming mainstream and the introduction of UKOM, the online industry’s answer to calls for one source of planning data, is being launched to build further confidence and growth in online display.

Classifieds are growing but are having a mixed time of it, with recruitment classifieds falling from this time last year, but growing from the last six months of 2008. All other classifieds are performing very well online showing growth from the same period last year, and in total classifieds makes up 22% of the online marketing mix, showing the effectiveness of and belief in this medium.

Search is by no means the be all and end all of online, though it has been a medium worth over £1 billion every six months for the last year. And it shows no signs of declining from this. As new offerings such as Bing bring innovation and choice to the market, and new product launches from Google such as FastFlip means this medium keeps being relevant and effective for advertisers.

We at the IAB are very excited for the next six months to see where ad spend will end up for the whole of 2009, even if sadly I won’t be here to announce it as I am leaving to start my own business. However I am very happy that my last week at the IAB sees the announcement of the big news that, perhaps earlier than most of us expected, online is now number 1 in the UK. And I was there at the heart of the industry when it happened.

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The one where M&S advertise me clothes they already know I’m interested in

980161 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:37:00 GMT

I’m getting used to behavioural advertising. It makes me amused when I’ve read an article about a Maserati to then be served an ad for one on another website (note to advertisers – interest does not equal income). But at the weekend something new happened. I was browsing the M&S website, looked at a couple of items and then put them in my shopping basket, then realised that payday was not for ages so shut down the website and carried on surfing the net when twenty minutes later on the news of the world site (I’m fascinated by Katie & Peter, please forgive me my bad taste) I was served an ad for M&S that showcased exactly the two pieces of clothing I had been looking at on their site. Clever, and kind of cool when you think about it. For a demo of how this works visit http://www.struq.com/demo/.

This kind of advertising is yet another example of how technology is allowing advertisers to reach interested consumers online. Behavioural advertising is driving value in our industry and is helping advertisers to understand how to get more bang for their budget out of what can sometimes be a confusing market in terms of planning for audience reach online. It is helping advertisers buy target audiences for brand awareness campaigns, and not just being used for direct response as was traditionally the case. It is not surprising that advertisers are taking advantage of the technology on offer to buy audiences that through behavioural advertising technology they know are already interested in their products and have visited your website. It is not difficult to see the attraction in buying an audience that though you don’t know who they are, you know that they like reading about cars, or holidays, and therefore that might make them more interested in what you are selling than if you knew absolutely nothing about what they liked. Behavioural advertising has always been popular among direct response advertisers, but more sophisticated tools and alliances online with retailers and ad serving companies will help to drive the use of targeted ad buys for branded advertisers, not just those looking for clicks and acquisitions.

There are also a host of new formats out there that are giving advertisers even more choice for their media budgets. Innovations in formats are driving renewed interest and are building the internet’s reputation as a serious branding medium, such as the widespread use of rich media, pre and post roll, media player skins and the exciting new billboard format (written about previously on the IAB blog).

This innovation is happening alongside the development of UKOM, the online industry’s answer to calls for a common planning tool, which will give even more information to advertisers and media planners on online audiences and how best to reach them. All of this adds up to a fantastic year for online, with strong foundations being laid for digital media when we come out of the recession.

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A BBC licence fee for a digital age?

2175094 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:10:00 GMT

The Government – pioneered by the departing Communications Minister, Lord Carter – today unveiled its final Digital Britain report.

There is welcome acknowledgement of the contribution digital advertising – in particular targeted advertising - will make in helping to monetise online content. The Government also attaches significant importance to self-regulation and education in promoting transparency and protecting internet users’ online privacy, supporting the IAB’s Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising, as well as www.youronlinechoices.co.uk, the new portal to help educate users. There is also encouraging news in the appointment of Martha Lane-Fox, one of the pioneers of digital commerce, as the Government’s digital inclusion champion.

But all eyes are on two specific proposals contained in the 238 page report which will alter the digital landscape in the years to come:

1. A 50 pence per month levy on all fixed copper and cable lines (but not mobile infrastructure) from 2010 to fund the rollout of next generation broadband. According to Lord Carter that’s £6 per year per household, although low income households would be exempt. The fund would raise between £150-175m a year, allowing next generation rollout to be complete by 2017, a timescale specifically criticised by the Conservative Culture Spokesperson, Jeremy Hunt.

2. Ring-fencing the BBC’s underspend for the so-called Digital Switchover Help Scheme (ie money the BBC receives to help vulnerable people switch to digital TV services - over and above its existing licence fee settlement) to help finance the delivery of regional news, other than that provided by the BBC. This ‘Contained Contestable Element of the Licence Fee’ idea is not the so-called ‘top-slicing (to you and me that’s ‘sharing out’) of the BBC’s licence fee, as has been widely reported in the media.

Significantly, this second proposal fires the starting gun of the licence fee review (due in 2013) and the beginning of a wider discussion about how the BBC’s licence fee should apply (and in what form) in a digital age (eg we don’t pay the licence fee to access the BBC’s website or the iPlayer). The report moots maintaining a ‘Contained Contestable Element’ of the licence fee after 2013 and, in his briefing to industry this afternoon, Carter did not rule out this money being used for (non-BBC) children’s content and programming.

If there is to be a lasting legacy of this report then this is it. The Government has effectively sounded the death knell on the BBC’s licence fee as we know it today and kicked-off the debate about how we fund public service content in a digital age.

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Transparency, choice and education is the way forward for online privacy

2175094 — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:20:00 GMT

A parliamentary body of MPs and Peers – the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications – is to conduct an inquiry into internet traffic, including behavioural advertising and online privacy. The Group asks whether the Government should intervene over behavioural advertising or whether it should leave it to users, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and websites. The Group also asks whether there is a need for any new initiative to deal with online privacy. The Group has sought ‘written evidence’ from interested parties and will be meeting with key stakeholders in mid-June.

The IAB has submitted a response to the Group specifically addressing these two questions. You can read a copy of our response here. Our response provides the Group with an introduction to behavioural advertising, how it works, how it differs to contextual and demographic online advertising, the different business models and the benefits to internet users, content producers and publishers, and advertisers.

The IAB’s response argues that transparency, choice and education is the way forward for online privacy. Its four key points are:

1. Government intervention over behavioural advertising services is not necessary at this time. The current legal framework is sound and efforts should focus on transparency of what data are used and how and on securing user trust.

2. The parliamentary group should encourage self-regulatory initiatives to address privacy concerns relating behavioural advertising, in particular the IAB’s Good Practice Principles which seek to build greater transparency and user trust.

3. The UK Government should press for amendments to the Council of Europe’s draft Recommendation on ‘Profiling’ that seeks to extend the current EU data protection legal framework in areas such behavioural advertising, so that industry can have legal certainty and recommendations are not damaging to business.

4. The Group should welcome and support ongoing self-regulatory and educational efforts, rather than recommending a new approach or initiative on online privacy.

The IAB will be hoping to provide ‘oral evidence’ to the Group next month. A final report is expected in the autumn.

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Digital Britain…kindly brought to you by advertising (part 2)

2175094 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:30:00 GMT

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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Is Google setting the industry standard on privacy?

2175094 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

With the IAB’s Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising still ‘hot off the press’ (to use an old media term!), Google this week launched its own ‘interest-based advertising’ global product across its AdSense partner sites and YouTube.

Google’s new venture meets the core commitments of notice, choice and education enshrined in the IAB Good Practice Principles (Google is a signatory) and the privacy-enhancing tools in the product will help to build greater consumer trust in more relevant advertising fuelling the “content, products and services available on the internet today”. Specific features will provide internet users with the following:

• Clear information about the collection and use of data for interest-based advertising by clicking a ‘label’ on the advert itself. The IAB’s Good Practice Principles specifically offer this (Guidance Note 1C) as an option to signatories to meet the commitment to provide ‘clear and unambiguous notice to users.’

• A clear choice as to whether the user wants relevant interest-based advertising or not. Google will have a clear ‘opt-out’ option as well as a ‘plug-in’ to download on a user’s web browser in order to maintain that choice in the event that they decide to delete all the cookies on that particular web browser. A clear opt-out for the collection and use of data for behavioural advertising (over and above where consent is required – for example when personal data is collected) is another requirement of the Good Practice Principles (2.1).

• Clear information on the product and the privacy features on the Google privacy channel on YouTube (see also below). This will be linked to the IAB’s new website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – as outlined in the Principles (3.2).

• An option on what types of advertising they see by adding or removing ‘interest’ categories using the Ads Preference Manager.

These are welcome steps. All of the signatories to the IAB’s Good Practice Principles have excellent privacy-enhancing tools, but Google’s features will certainly set a precedent for the rest of the industry to follow.

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Have you got a behaviour problem?

2347496 — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:20:00 GMT

You soon could have. That’s because the Internet Advertising Bureau has just put together a ‘best practice’ code on how you go about it. The three main tenets for behavioural advertising are consent i.e. you’ve got to give people a chance to opt out/in; education i.e. you’ve got to tell people how you’re going to use their data; notice i.e. tell people that you’re going to use it for a specific purpose.Is it going too far or not far enough? The key point of conjecture is that the companies that ‘cold ping’ you don’t actually have any of your personal data. It’s all down to that pesky cookie code on your hard drive. So, in effect, it is you and it isn’t you. It’s hardly the same as cold calling though. Indeed, if you head onto the Internet shouldn’t you expect it? Isn’t it all in the spirit of the web? Isn’t it great that companies are hunting you down to bring you thoroughly relevant offers and deals?