By Lou Mastria
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, once said, “Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
Covey’s statement holds particularly true in the world of advertising, as the impact of an ad depends not only on a compelling message but also on the consumer’s confidence in the advertiser and the way the ad was delivered.
The founding organizations for the Digital Advertising Alliance – 4A’s, AAF, ANA, CBBB, DMA, IAB, and NAI – knew that the success of the emerging digital advertising industry would depend on building a high level level of trust with consumers, so they created the DAA as a program to give consumers transparency and control over the collection and use of their data for interest-based advertising.
This week, as we kickoff our annual gathering of stakeholders in digital advertising, DAA Summit 2017, we plan to look back at some of the lessons of the last seven years and begin to chart a course to extend our proven model to the next generation of technology and business models emerging into the market today. The theme of the Summit – “Furthering Consumer Trust Through Dynamic Self-Regulation” – is designed to facilitate that cross-industry dialogue around both policy and consumer issues.
Some new research we are releasing today highlights how much progress we’ve already made in establishing the AdChoices icon, the DAA’s visual gateway for consumers, as a useful and trusted tool for consumers to get information about and exercise control over the types of advertising they receive.
According to our latest survey*:
- Nearly three-quarters of respondents (73 percent) said the kind of information and control provided by AdChoices icon is very or somewhat useful;
- A similar large majority (75 percent) said that seeing the AdChoices icon in an online or mobile ad would increase their trust in that advertiser;
- Four out of five respondents (79 percent) said they would be more likely to use a website that clearly displayed the AdChoices icon; and
- The same large majority of respondents (80 percent) said the AdChoices icon would increase their trust in emerging digital platforms like Web-connected devices, advanced TV, and digital billboards.
The full results of the survey follow this post. In short, large majorities of respondents find the YourAdChoices icon useful, say it increases their trust in advertisers and websites, and say it would increase their trust if incorporated into emerging digital platforms.
We are delighted that the efforts of the digital advertising industry to promote the YourAdChoices program are showing such positive concrete results, as consumers continue to learn to look for – and trust – the advertisers and websites that are using the icon.
* The survey was commissioned by the DAA and conducted via SurveyMonkey of 1,067 American adults from May 30-June 1, 2017. Based on a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error is +/- 3.2 percentage points.
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