By Lou Mastria
Big idea: As the second quarter of 2023 progresses, DAA self-regulatory initiatives are forging ahead to keep your company on the right side of the consumer. Make sure to keep pace and participate accordingly.
The DAA’s community’s strength has come from its foresight and its proactive actions to codify and live by responsible industry practices. Those practices and that commitment has allowed us to help shape policy debates, media and consumer attitudes.
In large part, this is because our community interacts with consumers every day and we know to what our customers respond favorably. Working through DAA, responsible companies have manifested this practical experience through groundbreaking privacy-enhancing tools and techniques. As the market changes, as regulators continue to increase their pressure on the industry, and as consumer engagement with media evolves, it is critical that we, as a community, continue to keep pace with the consumer expectations and new technologies.
This is our best opportunity to manage uncertainties, all the while providing consumers and our brands meaningful protections. This helps keep the ad marketplace safe for brand-consumer engagement, and paves the way for trust.
As we enter May, amid another busy legislative season, we must remind our participants (and prospective partners alike) that several large-scale projects are being worked on inside the Digital Advertising Alliance. Please keep these projects in mind as you plan for the balance of this year’s activities.
CMP CoMPlement – This past quarter, we announced our plan for working with consent management platforms or providers (CMPs). The CMP CoMPlement project consists of interface guidance and an integration specification (a signal and API) that CMPs can use to bridge consumer choices between the DAA and their own respective offerings. While it’s named the “CMP CoMPlement,” the work also applies to customer data platforms (CDPs) and any other third party that handles consumer consent signals. We want to work with you – reach out to put this work on your organization’s roadmap. We’re particularly looking for testers for Second Quarter 2023, ahead of our Summit. To learn more about this initiative and to get involved, please get in touch with Jamie Monaco (cmp@aboutads.info).
Political Ad Icon Serving & Ad Database – Demand-side platforms and publishers alike will want to pay attention to the services offered through the updated purple icon program, the DAA Political Ad icon. Our program features a self-serve icon-serving platform that participants can use to place transparency information atop their political ads – much as our blue AdChoices icon does for privacy information. We also offer an ad database to store ad creatives for up to five years – that can serve as a state registry. Both the icon serving and ad database have an API for integration. Contact us should you like to take advantage of this growing program – best to plan well ahead of the next election cycle. To explore Political Ad icon licensing and platform participation, visit: https://aboutpoliticalads.org/advertiser
P.S.: While the tools are intended for the DSP, Political Advertiser and Publisher markets, Brands can also leverage these tools by making asking whether their direct or programmatic partners can support the DAA Political Ads program as part of a brand’s Brand Safety tool box.
Addressable Media Identifiers – If your company offers the marketplace an identity solution across sites, apps, platforms and browsers, then now is the time to achieve DAA certification of these AMI solutions – to assert, through an independent third party, that such solutions adhere fully to the DAA-administered AMI Policy Framework. We are also asking brands and publishers now to include DAA-certified AMIs in their RFPS, policies and contracts. To initiate the AMI certification process, visit: https://digitaladvertisingalliance.org/ami
More Than Token Change – DAA’s YourAdChoices – a transparency and consumer control tool for token opt-out/revocation is already in market -- using hashed email addresses as advertising identifiers. We are now in process of testing an opt-out tool for hashed phone numbers (initially focusing on smartphones) – to provide similar choice, through a verified process. For those ad tech companies using WebChoices and AppChoices, who may be turning to token identifiers as cookie and mobile ad identification alternatives or supplements, now is the time to sign up for testing. To get started, use the “YourAdChoices” tick box on our choice tools integration form: https://digitaladvertisingalliance.org/integrate-daa-youradchoices
And mark your calendar for June 13-14 for DAA Summit 23 – all four of these initiatives (among others) will be discussed thoroughly at DAA Summit 23 in Chicago, IL on June 13-14. 2023. There’s no time to wait on these aforementioned initiatives until then – since the Summit will prominently feature companies who are leading these efforts. We would love to include you and your company in our program there. Registration is now open (DAA program participants and guests only) – and you may contact Chet Dalzell directly now to arrange for an event sponsorship on your company’s behalf.
These are not the only DAA initiatives underway now. Stay tuned and get engaged with us as we continue to provide the necessary tools and protocols to enhance consumer engagement and help build trust through enhanced transparency and control.