In an effort to raise standards in digital advertising and address key issues facing the industry, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK has launched the IAB Gold Standard initiative.
The initiative is designed to address such issues as ad fraud, brand safety and the overall digital advertising experience, with the result being Gold Standard certification for participating companies. Sovrn is among an initial list of companies who have registered for this process.
“A healthy internet is one that delivers a quality uncluttered experience for readers and helps digital buyers have trust in the audiences and content they are buying against,” says Sovrn CMO Andy Evans. “This initiative is an excellent step forward, and as a company that not only ticks all the boxes recommended by this initiative (and many more) we applaud this step forward.”
Initially, the IAB UK Gold Standard has three fundamental aims:
- Reduce ad fraud by implementing the ads.txt initiative on all sites carrying ads
- Improve the digital advertising experience by adhering to LEAN principles, the Coalition for Better Advertising standards, and never using the 12 ‘bad’ ads
- Increase brand safety by working with JICWEBS with a view to becoming certified or maintaining certification
The British initiative builds on the standards set by the U.S.-based IAB, IAB Tech Lab, and Coalition for Better Ads (CBA). IAB U.S. said they are “confident that a similar model, in combination with guidance and programs established by the U.S. Media Rating Council (MRC) and Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), will soon enable new uniform brand safety guidelines worldwide — and are activating on this strategy.”
At Sovrn, we feel that this move is a big step towards building trust in the industry.
“We encourage all our peers to get audited and follow these steps,” says Evans, “as well as all other industry initiatives that support a better web.”
Currently more than two dozen companies have registered for the IAB UK Gold Standard. The next step is certification, and this process will take place beginning in early 2018.
