Keith Weed, Unilever’s global chief marketing and communications officer, feels that the digital supply chain does need cleaning up. We move from issue to issue. There is talk about ad fraud, viewability, verification and measurement. However, all these are examined in isolation. They should be examined holistically.
There are three Vs : Viewability, Verification and Value.
In digital world, Viewability is treated in terms of the view of 50 per cent of pixels. This is the concept of a view. Can we extend this concept to TV? Can 50 percent of the TV count? There should be agreement that a view is 100 per cent.
As the digital market has extended, verification has become important. It creates accountability. There could be third party verification.
Brand safety ensures that the ads appear in a suitable environment. There should be high guard rails in place. There should be clarification regarding inventry being bought. Then there are tools which advertisers and media companies use. When you buy really cheap, there are chances that you are on a cheap site. As 60 per cent traffic on Internet is that of bots, ad fraud is very common.But if you buy good quality media, there are the lowest levels of fraud.
We require one measurement across media, as it is one consumer and one ad budget. This we have to unlock as an industry.