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Technology Featured Global

IAS enters partnership with Gadsme to optimise transparency on in-game ads performance

Singapore – Global leader in digital media quality Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced its first-to-market partnership with in-game advertising platform Gadsme.

With the partnership, IAS will help verify Gadsme’s ad inventory globally. It will also provide marketers with third-party viewability and invalid traffic measurement (IVT) through the IAS Signal platform.

IAS’ solution will be enabling marketers to validate that impressions are fraud-free, verify that their campaigns reach real people, and equip them with important campaign insights. These media quality measurements are reported through the IAS Signal platform, including mobile and web browsing campaigns.

Tom Sharma, chief product officer of IAS, shared his excitement over the partnership that will further develop campaign measurability and performance in gaming environments.

“This partnership creates a new level of transparency for marketers and will ensure confidence that they are engaging real users and driving outcomes,” he added. 

Simon Spaull, chief revenue officer and co-founder at Gadsme, also commented, “This announcement further solidifies Gadsme as a transformative tech leader for the gaming ad industry specifically in 3D environments. Gadsme’s non-intrusive video, display, and audio ad formats enable publishers to monetize their games without interrupting a player’s experience.”

He also added that the solution is advantageous to global brands and helps advertisers reach their target audience in a safe and ideal environment. 

IAS has also previously partnered with in-game advertising platform Anzu to provide media measurement for in-game ads.

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Marketing Featured Global

Ex-Spotify’s Khurrum Malik appointed as Integral Ad Science’s new CMO

Singapore – Integral Ad Science (IAS) has appointed Khurrum Malik, the former head of global business marketing at Spotify, as its new chief marketing officer. In his new role, Malik will accelerate the market growth initiatives for IAS and lead its global marketing strategy.

During his previous stint at Spotify, he led the business marketing, creative, product marketing, measurement, and analytics teams within Spotify’s advertising business. He was also previously the CMO of Compass, a real estate technology platform, and was head of product marketing at Meta.

Speaking on his new role, he said, “IAS has set the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality. I look forward to working with the entire IAS team to ensure global marketers, publishers, and media platforms understand how best to leverage our technology and insights to activate brand-safe and ROI-driven campaigns.”

Meanwhile, Yannis Dosios, chief commercial officer at IAS, commented, “Khurrum’s impressive background and passion for technology and marketing will be instrumental to driving our go-to-market strategies and increasing awareness of our value proposition. We are excited for him to lead the marketing effort for IAS.”

Malik’s appointment comes a month after Integral Ad Science was tapped by streaming giant Netflix–alongside DoubleVerify–to verify the viewability and traffic validity of their ads starting in Q1 2023.

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Technology Featured APAC

IAS to provide brand safety measurement suite for TikTok

Singapore Integral Ad Science, global solutions for digital media quality, has announced the addition of a post-bid brand safety and suitability measurement solution to its ongoing partnership with TikTok.

Through an integration with the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK), IAS provides advertisers campaign insights into brand safety and brand suitability aligned to Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) standards on the TikTok platform in select markets. 

The new partnership allows brands and agencies to effectively monitor the quality of their media buys on TikTok, giving advertisers confidence that their media investments across TikTok are appearing next to content that is brand safe and suitable.

“We are excited to continue to grow our partnership with TikTok and provide valuable tools that allow brands to make the most of their pre-bid and post-bid campaigns,” said Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS

Utzschneider added, “As one of the largest video platforms, offering a holistic solution for advertisers planning their digital ad campaigns with the platform is more important than ever.” 

IAS’ current TikTok brand safety solution provides comprehensive brand safety measurement and protection on TikTok for pre-bid ad placement in select markets.

The post-bid brand safety measurement offering will provide third-party measurement which gives advertisers campaign insights of the content ads appeared adjacent to. Powered by the OM SDK, which is owned and governed by IAB Tech Lab with IAS being a founding member, the OM SDK is designed to facilitate transparent third-party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to mobile apps and open web environments. 

Furthermore, it offers an industry-aligned safety and suitability measurement in line with Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) categories and floor, which provides clear insights. It also promises a 100% artificial intelligence and machine learning brand safety technology, which combines video, audio, and text to accurately classify content on the feed at scale. 

“At TikTok, we strive to create the most trusted environment for brands, built on a foundation of safety, transparency and accountability. We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with IAS to offer both pre- and post-bid brand safety solutions to businesses of all sizes,” said Melissa Yang, head of ecosystem partnerships at TikTok

She added, “Bringing IAS on board as a global brand safety and suitability measurement partner will give our brands the confidence they need to ensure they are protecting their brand reputation.”

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Technology Featured Southeast Asia

IAS elevates Megan Reichelt as new country manager for SEA

Singapore – Global digital ad verification company Integral Ad Science (IAS) has elevated Megan Reichelt, former head of programmatic for APAC at IAS, to be its new country manager for SEA.

In her new role, Reichelt will be actively working with brands, agencies, publishers, and technology partners to increase digital media quality and programmatic growth across SEA. She will also be developing sales strategies to best support current clients while building new partnerships with key stakeholders to help them go beyond verification and make every ad impression count. 

Reichelt joined IAS in June 2021 as strategic partnerships manager, and within a short span was promoted to APAC head of programmatic business. With programmatic sales and marketing experience across Australia and Singapore, she brings strong expertise in business development, sales strategy, and scaling local market programs. Before joining IAS, she was the marketing lead for Accor hotels, working on digital advertising and content strategies.

Commenting on her appointment, Reichelt said, “Southeast Asia’s digital media market is evolving quickly, and I look forward to working with marketers and publishers to tap into IAS’ solutions that can help drive efficiency and return on their investments in new ways.”

Meanwhile, Laura Quigley, SVP for APAC at IAS, noted that with their continued investment and growth plans in Southeast Asia, they have rapidly expanded their team across multiple functions in Singapore, and she is thrilled to have Reichelt provide operational excellence, team management, and sales leadership in the region.

“She has already been very successful in her programmatic lead role with strong track records of building strategic partnerships across these markets and growing business within the ad tech space. I am confident she will successfully guide the teams and help clients improve their digital spending outcomes,” said Quigley.

In July 2022, IAS and Anzu have recently announced a partnership to enable global brands and agencies to effectively monitor the quality of their in-game media investments in mobile gaming environments.

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Technology Featured Global

IAS, Anzu team up to provide media measurement for in-game advertising

New York, USA – Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Anzu have recently announced a partnership to enable global brands and agencies to effectively monitor the quality of their in-game media investments in mobile gaming environments.

Through this collaboration, IAS provides advertisers with Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement and reports on Viewability through the IAS Signal platform.

This strategic collaboration further delivers ad transparency into mobile gaming environments, continuing IAS’s progress related to in-game brand safety, suitability, IVT, and viewability measurement everywhere in the digital advertising ecosystem. 

Tom Sharma, chief product officer at IAS, said, “Gaming continues to emerge as a medium with broad appeal and growing reach. By partnering with Anzu, we now deliver in-game measurement and transparency for advertisers within gaming environments. This integration sets the platform for quality standards within ad-supported gaming and allows advertisers to better understand and control the quality of their media on Anzu.”

Meanwhile, Itamar Benedy, co-founder and CEO of Anzu, commented, “Anzu’s new partnership with IAS is the next step in standardising in-game viewability and performance in the mobile gaming industry, which is projected to reach $136 billion worldwide this year. This new partnership means advertisers can now get enhanced visibility into the effectiveness of their campaigns. This further strengthens the already robust metrics and reporting advertisers benefit from when running in-game ad campaigns with Anzu.”

Lastly, Joe Cady, EVP of advanced advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, commented, “This important measurement advancement will help accelerate advertisers’ ability to scale their in-game media investments by further demonstrating the high performance of the Anzu platform. We are excited to see Anzu and IAS partner to expand insights and streamline measurement operations for marketers as they evaluate their in-game media effectiveness.”

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Marketing Featured APAC

Integral Ad Science makes senior appointments for customer success team in APAC

Singapore – Integral Ad Science has announced senior appointments for its customer success team in Asia-Pacific, namely Rob Kay as VP of customer success for APAC; Amanda Soh as head of customer success for SEA, Hong Kong and Taiwan; Andreas Duus Davidsen as customer success account director for SEA and Jessica Reid as customer success account director for ANZ

The team expansion adds commercial expertise and business support to grow customers in the region — while enabling the global and local brands to navigate digital media quality and maximise their digital investments to drive actual business outcomes.

In his new role, Kay will continue to lead the regional customer success team and build deep relationships with partners to understand their performance criteria better — ensuring the application of IAS solutions complements their investments and helps deliver better brand outcomes. He reports directly to Laura Quigley, SVP for APAC.

Meanwhile, Soh will lead the team driving service to one of the fastest growing regions – ensuring efficiency and driving real business outcomes for brands and agency partners. She reports to Rob Kay. She also brings a wealth of experience on the agency side. Before joining IAS, she worked with PHD as associate director, and before that, she was with Mindshare Singapore as account director.

Reid will be responsible for shaping and spearheading the local customer growth and business development strategy. She reports directly to Chanel Barta, the head of customer success for ANZ. She also brings extensive knowledge within the programmatic ecosystem, having previously worked as the programmatic business director at Havas Media Group.

Lastly, Davidsen is responsible for partnering with global brands and media agency clients to educate them on how to best utilise IAS’s entire product suite to drive media performance. Andreas reports to Amanda Soh. Andreas has worked across regions and has deep knowledge of digital media planning and buying.

Speaking about the appointments, Quigley said, “Customer centricity is at the core of what we do at IAS. This customer-centric approach has enabled us to retain global and regional clients by providing a consultative partnership that provides long-term value. These appointments will help continue our teams to provide world-class customer service.”

She added, “These senior roles not only reinforce the importance of APAC in IAS’s growth strategy but will also support the keen understanding of clients’ needs and foster deep integrations with clients’ tech stacks, making IAS the media quality partner of choice in the region.”

Categories
Technology Featured Global

IAS launches report to show how misleading content impacts digital advertising

New York, USA Report uncovers how false information affects the digital advertising industry, according to the ‘Misinformation & Media Quality’ report from Integral Ad Science. 

The report of digital media experts explores the challenges that misleading content poses for media strategies, as well as what actions advertisers are taking to protect their campaigns against these growing threats.

The majority of experts agree that the spread of misinformation has been fueled by recent global developments. Media experts surveyed reported that the volume of misinformation has increased due to political polarisation with 76%, recent geopolitical developments with 68%, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with 62%.

Tony Marlow, CMO, IAS, said, “As we continue to classify sources of misinformation, our report illustrates the heightened need to focus on controlling advertisers’ contextual adjacencies, including the implementation of suitability frameworks that specifically address false or misleading content.” 

According to Marlow, the research reveals how industry leaders are grappling with misleading content and what actions they are, or aren’t, taking to protect both current and future campaigns.

IAS, in partnership with YouGov, surveyed over 500 digital media experts from brands, agencies, publishers and ad tech providers to examine perspectives surrounding misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.

A vast majority of media experts agree misinformation should be actively avoided, but few say their organisations have clear guidelines.73% of media experts agree that ad buyers and sellers must actively avoid misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. However, less than half or 47% of those media experts reported that their organisations have clear guidelines regarding advertising alongside misinformation.

Recent global events have fueled the threat of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news content. As ad spending continues to grow, total media ad spend is expected to approach $350 billion in 2022, making media quality assurance ever-present as buyers and sellers seek to minimise known and emerging threats. The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) estimates that advertisers unwittingly provide at least $235m to global disinformation sites, on an annual basis.

A large number of industry experts report high levels of concern regarding media threats. As ad spending grows, media quality threats will remain top of mind, with 84% of experts reporting high levels of concern about at least one threat. A majority of these industry experts flag content-spreading misinformation, disinformation, and fake news as the most concerning media quality threats, with 63% reporting high levels of concern. 

In such an event, impact on company reputation and consumer distrust are of greater concern than campaign ROI. Around disinformation, 42% of experts conveyed concern about the impact on their company’s reputation or consumer distrust in legitimate content and advertising, whereas 29% cited concern over reduced audience reach and only 22% around lost media budget/revenue.

Though digital media experts agree that the spread of misinformation is the most concerning media quality threat, apprehension persists around ad fraud, adjacencies next to questionable content, and low viewability for more than half of respondents, according to the report.

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Marketing Featured APAC

Why optimising attention drives digital campaign conversions

Digital advertising allows marketers to target consumers more precisely with more personalised, relevant information, in real-time, on multiple devices, and on the go. Digital advertising’s highly personalised nature should make it more relevant to audiences, but brand risks, supply path murkiness, privacy concerns, and ad fraud create barriers. 

Advertisers are looking for more transparency around targeting customers online after the deprecation of cookies. I believe there will be even more demand for scalable and privacy-friendly attention metrics beyond viewability and clicks to provide more granular insights, engagement and outcomes. Brands are focused on driving outcomes and conversion from ad spending and they’re looking for more privacy compliant and scalable solutions. 

Optimising attention drives outcomes

Our research team analysed data to understand how our partners could leverage technology to capture more significant attention to understand correlations between quality, suitability, and time-in-view. The research uncovered that viewability and time in view have a medium correlation (intuitively makes sense). Moreover, when only looking at impressions on contextually relevant pages (i.e. Toyota ad on an automotive site), the correlation becomes more vital. The practical implication of insight like this is that you can drive greater attention by targeting higher viewability rates in programmatic prebid targeting and utilising contextual targeting solutions.

For example, when we analysed the automotive vertical, we saw that when the context was relevant and optimised for viewability, there was an 8.3-second increase in time-in-view for every 10% increase in viewability rates. This was 2.4x higher than in a non-optimized context. 

Here’s a preview of what we discovered:

  • Time-in-view increases as viewability and brand safety increase
  • 57% increase in conversions for viewable and brand-safe impressions compared to non-viewable and not safe
  • 171% increase in conversions for impressions with time-in-view greater than 15 seconds

Creative, contextual, and privacy-compliant advertising 

It is essential to consider how relevant the ads are to the consumers to drive greater attention. It’s human nature to engage with information that we find interesting — whether that’s through engaging in creative or contextual relevance.

IAS research showed a 40% lift in memory of a particular ad when contextually aligned. Brands can harness the dual power of contextual targeting and high-quality placements to drive greater brand engagement. It’s also vital to acknowledge that placing ads beside low-quality content can have significant consequences, including a high risk of damaging brand reputation. To ensure online ads drive the right attention and outcome, aligning with suitable contexts must be a top priority.

As our industry prepares for a cookieless future and increasingly moves away from third party audience targeting, advertisers have a significant opportunity to be intentional with contextual tools. While many brands will focus on building and investing and first-party and second-party data, marketers will start blending this expensive and highly targeted approach with scalable advertising that can be achieved via environments that are contextually relevant, using contextual as a proxy for third party audiences.

Ultimately, a shift to contextual advertising is also good news for the industry because it aligns with the preferences of privacy-conscious consumers while achieving the brand’s goals for engagement.

This article was written by Laura Quigley, SVP for APAC at IAS.

Categories
Technology Featured ANZ

Australian viewers prefer the CTV ad experience over linear TV

Sydney, Australia – Around 94% of Australian users think there are features of the CTV ad experience that make it better than linear TV, according to the latest data from media company Integral Ad Science.

According to the data, Australians prefer the ability to skip ads, fewer ads and shorter ads, which are critical differentiators for connected TV. In addition, people are streaming with CTV, and most are watching at least some ad-supported content with 91% of consumers surveyed saying they stream content on CTV and 97% of CTV users have access to a paid subscription to ad-free platforms.

In addition, YouTube with ads is the top ad-supported content on CTV, with 73% of consumers using their connected TV to watch YouTube with ads. Moreover, 53% of consumers say they will view an ad to completion if it is relevant to the content they are watching.

Jessica Miles, country manager for ANZ at IAS, said, “Australian consumers have been quick to embrace CTV and streaming platforms as the future of television. They have high expectations for ad relevance in these new digital environments. The SVOD (subscription streaming) market in Australia is at saturation point, and publishers are pivoting to offer AVOD (advertiser supported streaming) to maintain profitability and retain audiences.”

She added, “The demand from buyers for AVOD on CTV is also growing exponentially, fueled by increasing targeting options, increased measurement, and CTV’s ability to be bought programmatically. Combining transparency and programmatic efficiency will allow advertisers to reach wide audiences more efficiently and engagingly.”

Categories
Technology Featured Southeast Asia

IAS to boost contextual targeting solution with launch of ‘Control Panel’

Singapore — Integral Ad Science (IAS), a digital media company, has launched Control Panel, a suite of reporting and planning tools that Context Control customers can use as an added value. The new capabilities will enable customers to more clearly understand the value and return on investment that IAS’s contextual targeting solution delivers.

The Control Panel suite offers the following new tools namely Context Control Segment Catalog, which provides easy discovery of all Context Control Avoidance and Targeting off-the-shelf segments all in one place; and Contextual Segment Reach Calculator, which advises on the prospective reach of IAS contextual targeting segments to appropriately plan campaigns.

There is also the Contextual Targeting Reporting tool that offers insights into targeting segment performance, specifically focusing on viewability, reach, and programmatic dimensions. The last tool is Contextual Targeting Profiles which enables clients to bundle all of their desired targeting segments into one profile with a single segment ID for easy activation in their demand side platforms (DSP).

Tom Sharma, chief product officer of IAS, said, “Using our new Control Panel, advertisers will gain the ability to strategically plan, activate, and optimize their targeting campaigns all within the IAS Signal platform. This is yet another example of our ongoing efforts to empower our customer organizations and clients to confidently lean into our contextual targeting solution while hitting campaign KPIs.”

Advertisers can average more than 400 contextual segments from IAS on a pre-bid basis to avoid undesirable content or target content that is suitable for their campaigns. Major DSPs including Adelphic, Adform, Amobee, MediaMath, Xandr, Yahoo, and others have integrated Context Control, making these tools readily available for advertisers wherever they choose to buy.