“Plenty of heat, but little light” on programmatic says ISBA

The new ISBA president, Britvic CEO, Simon Litherland, unsurprisingly focused on programmatic when he addressed the annual ISBA conference this morning (11 March).

“Transparency is still high on the agenda,” Litherland said in his first speech since being appointed president. “There has been a lot of heat but very little light. Our agency colleagues understandably seek a new commercial relationship but their reluctance to give clients financial visibility greatly hampers this cause.

“Programmatic has received much airtime and now accounts for around half of all online buys, though its adoption by the legacy media remains slow for now. Online brand safety has seen several important initiatives launched including the Infringing Website List, and the Digital Trading Standards Group’s Good Practice Principles.

“All of these are aimed at making online display safer for brands. The next challenge is to persuade all our members to stipulate adherence to them.”

Litherland added that the last year saw “significant growth” in ad fraud.

“One major FMCG company recently discovered that half of the one billion impressions served during a video campaign were not from real viewers. Advertisers who buy inventory on the basis of low price first are in most danger. All these issues clearly demand our continuing focus and we’ll need all parties to work together to resolve them,” he said.