27 media companies band together in an attempt to sell better ads
Between hush-hush widespread fraud, clunky and inconsistent load times and consumer wariness that's driving people to ad blockers, the digital ad industry has a clear crisis of trust.
That's why the publishing industry's biggest trade group is joining with some of the biggest names in media to create a new advertising marketplace with transparency in mind.
SEE ALSO:Ad blocking usage is up more than 10 percent from last yearThe exchange, TrustX, is set to launch as a B Corporation -- a license awarded to businesses that follow a set of socially aware guidelines -- under the auspices of trade group Digital Content Next early next year. Since DCN is a registered nonprofit, the exchange won't have the same profit incentive that most other endeavors of its kind do.
A total of 27 media companies from across the industry are signed on to host the ads, including ESPN, Conde Nast, Hearst, the Washington Post, ABC and others.
While it's fairly common for media companies to join forces to sell and place ads in this manner -- some more successfully than others -- DCN CEO Jason Kint says the nonprofit status and diverse client roster make the project unique.
"I'm certain this hasn't been done before," Kint said in a private Twitter message."Think of it as a collaborative platform to solve trust issues for consumers and advertisers."
The marketplace is intended as a rebuke to many of the issues that are endemic to the industry.
Click fraud, in which ads are served to networks of human-mimicking bots rather than real people, has increasingly infected the digital advertising supply chain, where parties at every level have an incentive not to make a fuss over it.
Ads are also oftentimes ill-fitted for the restrictions of a given webpage -- a Google study a few years ago estimated more than half of all ads never reach human eyeballs -- and the technical inefficiencies annoy customers.
One need only look to the growing number of people switching on ad blockers for evidence of the industry's troubles.
Various groups have tried to salve these issues with sets of standards meant to govern what constitutes an acceptable ad, including ad industry trade group Interactive Advertising Bureau and, to the industry's frustration, AdBlock Plus.
TrustX adds more backbone to these efforts by actually regulating what gets bought and sold on the exchange.
"Much effort is happening across the industry to combat significant trust issues in digital advertising with many incumbent interests," Kint says. "TrustX allows us to at the same time use a real marketplace to solve for the end stakeholders where trusts matters most -- consumers and advertisers."