Representatives from all corners of the UK’s digital display advertising market have banded together in the name of best practice to minimise the risk of ad misplacement.
Made up of several trade bodies, including the Association of Online Publishers, ISBA, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the Internet Advertising Bureau UK, the Digital Standards Group (DTSG) has been the driving force of this collaborative effort.
The UK Good Practice Principles are a set of new industry-wide standards that cover Content Verification (CV) tools and appropriate or inappropriate schedules, to give a sense of increased transparency across the display market.
While the new guidelines will lower the chances of inappropriate or illegal content being associated with advertising, the DTSG did not go as far as to say that the chances of this happening would be completely eradicated.
Verification process
Businesses committed to the cause of the UK Good Practice Principles will have their ad misplacement policies and processes verified by an independent third party. Should they pass, they will be given a seal of compliance that will be sought out by those buying digital display advertising.
Marketers should now find it even easier to sell the benefits of a display campaign to any company concerned about its brand being associated with nefarious publishers, according to the ISBA’s marketing services manager, David Ellison.
“Brands rightly need greater reassurances against the significant risk to their reputation of online ad misplacement,” Ellison said. “The complex digital landscape we operate in demanded a joined-up approach from industry, which is precisely what these principles represent.”
Rules published by the IPAs and ISBAs earlier this year will be superseded by this new set. Companies including Adfonic, Fox Networks, Google DoubleClick, Microsoft, Millennial Media, RocketFuel, Quantcast and ValueClick Media have come out in support of the principles.