One year after launching its IAB Believes initiative that took aim at tackling five of the biggest issues facing mobile and digital advertising, the IAB has revealed the progress it has made.

The initiative hoped to provide solutions to help marketers and consumers address ad blocking, ad fraud, viewability, brand safety and privacy, finding ways to maintain the presence of advertising on the internet while also dealing with consumer concerns and bugbears.

“Despite growing at its fastest rate for seven years, digital advertising continues to face a number of medium term challenges, so its time to outline the huge amount of work thats been going on, some behind the scenes, to tackle them,” said Guy Phillipson, CEO of the IAB UK. “Weve made good progress but, of course, theres still plenty of work to be done, by everyone involved in the industry, and were committed to seeing this through.”

The IABs various actions include:

Ad Blocking

• Launched DEAL as a set of options to help publishers respond to ad blocking
• Provided clarity and understanding of ad blocking with its LEAN ads proposal
• Delivered publisher guidance on ad blocking detection
• Produced a consumer notice guidance for publishers who are considering restricting access to content for consumers who block ads
• Ongoing research on the implementation of ad blocking, along with events to provde education and guidance
• Developing a charter to deliver the industrys commitment to higher standards

Ad Fraud

• Chaired the Cross-Industry Anti-Fraud Commercial and Anti-Fraud Technical Groups as a member of JICWEBS
• Developed a set of best practices to reduce the risk of fraud
• Created a certification programme to audit businesses against its Good Practice Principles, with the first companies expected to be audited next year
• Currently building anti-fraud principles for fraud detection vendors to meet common standards and introduce transparency into the market

Privacy

• Launched a GDPR Working Group to help guide industry understanding of the new European regulations on privacy
• Continued updating its GDPR FAQ document for businesses unsure about privacy law
• Hosted events to raise awareness and educate, most recently on Brexit and how it impacts EU data protection laws

Brand Safety

• Served as a key member of JICWEBS and the Digital Trading Standard Group that informs standards and guidelines in the UK
• Launched a third round of certifications for businesses involved in digital display trading to verify their processes to reduce the risk of ad misplacement
• Certified 36 companies against its Best Practice standards for brand safety

Viewability

• Chaired the Cross-Industry Viewability Group as part of JICWEBS, developing UK standards and guidelines for viewability
• Launches a second round of certification for viewability vendors, ensuring transparency and reducing discrepancies between providers
• Releasing updated viewability principles that cover desktop video
• Begun video viewability certification against its new principles, with the first companies to be certified next year
• Started work on updated principles for mobile and a certification programme to match it, both of which will be put into action in 2017

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