Towards A Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers - Michael Kassan Media Link-ed: - MediaBizBloggers

What does the advertising industry need to succeed in today's economy and grow in the future? How can advertisers ensure consumers are interacting with their brands and that advertisers are getting return on their investment? Every year the ANA Annual Conference offers an opportunity for marketers to learn from one another, to leverage each other's strengths, and to work together to improve the quality and accountability of our marketing efforts. In this rapidly changing marketing and media mix, industry collaboration at events like the ANA Conference is even more critical.

Of course, the Madison Avenue stylized socializing circa 1960s "Mad Men" is important. But with online advertising growing rapidly, and an abundance of digital channels, social networks, mobile applications and video, the dynamic is changing and advertisers have to work together to evolve with these new opportunities and challenges.

During Advertising Week in September, Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School who specializes in internet security and online advertising, suggested a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers. Professor Edelman offered five fundamental rights for advertisers:

1. An advertiser's right to know where its ads are shown.
2. An advertiser's right to meaningful, itemized billing.
3. An advertiser's right to use its data as it sees fit.
4. An advertiser's right to enjoy the fruits of its advertising campaigns.
5. An advertiser's right to resolve disputes fairly and transparently.

These essential rights will allow for greater transparency, fewer fraudulent advertisements, better ad placement, and improved control and value. This should be the norm for online advertisers rather than an environment with terms controlled by a few players and complex relationships – one that Professor Edelman described as the "wild west."

As the leading marketers come together this week in Phoenix, I hope the industry will have a chance to think about what advertisers require for growth. As a start, l wanted to share Professor Edelman's Bill of Rights below.

Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers Benjamin Edelman, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

September 21, 2009

I offer five rights to protect advertisers from increasingly powerful ad networks -- avoiding fraudulent charges for services not rendered, guaranteeing data portability so advertisers get the best possible value, and assuring price transparency so advertisers know what they're buying. I explain the need for these rights by presenting specific practices causing particular concern.

Online advertising presents remarkable efficiencies—better targeting, improved measurement, and greater return on investment. By dramatically lowering distribution costs, online ads cut fat from placements that had assumed significant waste. Pairing precise measurement with increasingly specific targeting, online ads can show the right message to the right user, with commensurate increases in effectiveness. Furthermore, online formats invite interactivity—not just text, pictures, and videos, but evaluation, discussion, and customization. The opportunity is staggering.

Yet there are challenges, particularly when networks of intermediaries place ads through convoluted relationships, and all the more so when advertising powerhouses dictate unsavory terms. The result is a troubling mess of ads gone wrong—advertisers charged in ways they didn't fairly agree to, and on terms they didn't meaningfully accept. These problems threaten to destabilize online advertising—wasting advertisers' budgets, slowing transition to online formats, and reducing payments to online publishers.

But online advertising doesn't have to be a wild west. In the sections that follow, I propose five specific rights advertisers should demand as they buy online placements:

1. An advertiser's right to know where its ads are shown. It is nonsense to pay for ad space without knowing where an ad will appear; sites vary too much in user quality and context. Even for "blind buys," advertisers need enough information to determine whether a given site qualifies to show an ad. Anything less undermines accountability—inviting fraudulent sites that devour advertisers' budgets. And with all manners of fraud—from spyware pop-ups to invisible banners to adult sites slipping into networks that claim to be brand-friendly—advertisers need to be wary.

2. An advertiser's right to meaningful, itemized billing. Clear records protect advertisers from accounting games. Otherwise, ad networks can claim "We already credited you for those clicks," knowing that advertisers cannot prove otherwise. But some ad networks provide invoices that are opaque at best.

3. An advertiser's right to use its data as it sees fit. Campaign configuration details (such as keywords and targeting) are an advertiser's own creation, to be retrieved whenever and however the advertiser chooses. Same for records of campaign performance. Yet some ad networks impede data portability in an attempt to increase their share of advertisers' spending. Such restrictions can lock advertisers into needlessly expensive ad platforms—sharply increasing advertising costs.

4. An advertiser's right to enjoy the fruits of its advertising campaigns. When a user clicks an ad, the advertiser pays fair value to reach that user. But in a world of behavioral targeting, a network can later resell that same user to the advertiser's direct competitor. Click one airline's ad and a network may conclude you're in the market for travel—then show ads for other carriers. That's a poor value for the advertiser whose spending sparked the targeting.

5. An advertiser's right to resolve disputes fairly and transparently. Ad networks generally write the contracts that govern their dealings with advertisers. Networks often use this drafting power to tilt contracts in their favor—disclaiming promises that ads will appear anywhere in particular, and denying responsibility for fraud, even when they know about it and fail to take action. At face value, these contracts purport to grant networks effective immunity from advertisers' complaints. But advertisers don't accept such one-sided provisions in other procurement contexts, and they need not be so lenient in online ad-buying.

In this time of plummeting ad prices, networks are increasingly anxious to attract advertisers. With increased negotiating power, advertisers can and should demand more.

Ben Edelman's full report continues here:
Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of Media Link, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

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