Collaboration is essential to overcome digital ad challenges
In the face of major challenges including privacy, ad blocking, viewability and fraud, the digital advertising industry must not "retreat away from progress" but must have the "courage to be bold and experiment", writes Mike Buckley, Digital Commercial Director at Telegraph Media Group, in an article for The Drum. For digital advertising to become mainstream and trusted by the advertising community, it must find a way to resolve all the challenges together as they are inextricably linked. The way to do this, suggests Buckley, is for all the key stakeholders in the industry to put their competitive differences aside and work together in partnerships and alliances, and not just lay the responsibility on the publisher. "For advertisers to put their faith in [digital] and realise its potential, collaboration, revised standards, more direct buying and fewer middle-men are essential" and the rewards of collaboration "will more than justify the means", concludes Buckley.  

Over the last 12 months, digital advertising has come into its own. Ever more attention is being given to issues such as viewability and programmatic partnerships – last month alone saw Sky, Channel 4 and ITV announce their own partnerships, with a new study revealing how programmatic is starting to shape the industry.

But despite these latest successes, digital advertising is still growing up and remains plagued by negative headlines on the failures and inadequacies of privacy, ad blocking, viewability and fraud. For many of these issues, the industry stands on a knife edge, and could easily retreat away from progress out of fear of reputational risk, rather than having the courage to be bold and experiment.

What the industry must recognise is that all other media had challenges which they overcame to become truly mainstream and trusted by the advertising community. Radio, for instance, never really got off the ground until creative agencies took it seriously and devoted some of their top talent to the challenges of using a sound-only platform. That change, allied to a more developed electronic trading system, enabled greater ROI and more accountability. As a result, radio’s share of the market grew.

For digital to achieve a similar feat, the answers to the challenges it faces need to be resolved together, not in isolation, as they are all inextricably linked. It is the responsibility of all protagonists in the industry to work together and solve them, not for the onus simply to be laid at the door of the publisher. In doing so, we will improve the overall digital experience of our readers and make the ecosystem more enticing, efficient and accountable for the advertisers.

Doubts over the effectiveness of publisher alliances have been raised on numerous occasions, but when run effectively, the value these partnerships can deliver is second to none. At the Telegraph, we have recently become involved in the AOP Alliance – or, to give it its proper name, Symmachia. Our participation in this project came out of an advertiser need for a brand-safe environment at scale.

While all advertisers love the benefits that programmatic from a premium publisher offers, they always ask for more scale: for example, 20 per cent of all buys on Appnexus are now in the form of packages. The formation of Symmachia answers that need: it gives advertisers the chance to tap into premium audiences in the marketplace at scale with one buy. This isn't social content, it is well-written, curated, journalistic content that has been developed over many years (160 years in our case) and has built up a high level of trust with readers.

It also answers the ongoing issue of fraud. The easy way to combat fraud is to stop buying in the open marketplace and to buy direct. This might mean that CPMs might rise slightly, but at buyers will be able to have complete confidence that the ads booked will appear in the quality environment in which they were planned.

We need to continue to challenge ourselves to answer the needs of advertisers. With video, for instance, alliances provide a perfect opportunity to address the issue of overly long pre-roll copy. It provides a forum where we could agree new standards and start delivering 10 or even five second pre-roll as the norm, as opposed to 30 seconds. This would, in the words of Mike Nicholson of MediaWorks, give advertisers the chance to say one thing, say it quickly and say it often, with several bits of copy

Digital can be many things to many people, but for advertisers to put their faith in it and realise its full potential, collaboration, revised standards, more direct buying and fewer middle-men are essential. Whilst digital advertising may not yet be grown-up, we are, so whilst this collaboration requires setting competitive differences aside, the rewards of doing so will more than justify the means.

Mike Buckley is digital commercial director at Telegraph Media Group