IAB Europe expands membership and programmes to drive digital advertising growth
A set of new initiatives in 2014
Under a new CEO since February 2014, IAB Europe recently rolled out a unique network of digital innovators based in 20+ of its national associations, the Digital Innovation Showcase Europe (DISE), to help bring technology and business insight to bear on policy-making in Brussels.
Adding to its much-watched AdEx Benchmark annual snapshot of digital advertising spend, IAB Europe in 2014 issued for the first time a market sizing on “programmatic” trading in Europe as well as a programmatic trading white paper.
IAB Europe Multi-Device and Connected World Library of Research to showcase the evolving consumer landscape and its potential for advertising.
The industry realises the value of working together
IAB Europe is proud to announce that ten new members have joined for 2015 to help drive the European digital advertising business forward: Adtruth, DMA Institute, MediaMath, Nextplora, Quantcast, SpotXchange, Teads, The Trade Desk, WebSpectator, and Widespace.
Seventeen companies have joined during the last 12 months, bringing the total corporate membership to over 65, including household names such as Microsoft, Orange, Yahoo! and Google, alongside less well-known high-growth companies from across the EU.
The membership boost reflects continued expansion in the digital advertising industry but also a wider realisation of the value of working together to address common challenges.
“There are significant opportunities today for innovative companies in the digital marketing space, but also threats,” noted IAB Europe Chairman Constantine Kamaras. “The latter arise from the potential for regulation that errs too much on the side of protecting online users from themselves and ends up penalising both companies and users, and the fact that digital is still a relatively novel and poorly-understood medium.”
“IAB Europe’s multi-stakeholder programmes, events and regulatory activities are fundamental to enable key players to come together and deliver the initiatives and insights that underpin business growth. The Teads team is delighted to be able to collaborate in IAB Europe with our industry peers on areas such as developing the quality advertising environment, via, for example, viewability and measurement initiatives.” said Christophe Parcot, COO of Teads.
Plans for 2015
In 2015 the focus will be on four key work-streams:
- Policy and regulation, with the current EU data protection review being top of the agenda;
- Brand Advertising initiatives to move the needle on brand investment by providing advertisers with a reliable and trusted brand advertising framework for the converging environments of digital and traditional media;
- Business standards, to address inefficiencies in digital campaign planning and buying and to enable transactions to get the scale that brand marketers are looking for;
- Research and analysis to prove the value of the digital advertising industry via outputs such as IAB Europe’s annual AdEx Benchmark study, the definitive guide to the state of the European online advertising market; the Global Mobile Ad Spend Study and the Programmatic Market Sizing.
Anne Goodman, VP Global Sales Marketing & Enablement at BBC Advertising (part of BBC Worldwide), has been appointed Vice Chairman of the IAB Board of Directors. “IAB Europe operates at the heart of the innovative European digital economy and provides a unique blend of policy and industry promotion activities for its members,” commented Goodman, “I look forward to helping to capitalise on the significant growth opportunities for the digital advertising business.”
IAB Europe CEO Townsend Feehan said, “There could not be a more interesting time to be in digital marketing, as EU citizens increasingly move online for news, education, entertainment and integration into the society around them. We look forward to working with our new members and welcoming more.”
Interact 2015, IAB Europe’s flagship annual digital industry event, will take place at the Axica Congress Centre in Berlin on 20-21st May. 2015 also sees the 20th anniversary of BVDW, IAB Europe’s German member association, and the two organisations will co-operate to take the Interact event to a new level.