The Guardian calls for new programmatic advertising regime in ACCC response
The Guardian has called for a new, transparent programmatic advertising system in its response to the ACCC’s digital platforms inquiry.
In the paper submitted to the competition regulator’s inquiry, the UK-owned newspaper group proposed a system of ‘programmatic receipting’ that would ensure buyers and sellers knew the price and mark-ups of online advertising.
Guardian Australia managing director Dan Stinton called for a transparent programmatic advertising system in response to the ACCC proposals
The proposed system would see all transactions recorded so advertisers would have a verifiable paper trail of all programmatic transactions, providing transparency to a market that the newspaper group described as ‘opaque by design’.
“Advertisers and publishers are currently operating with a limited understanding of how money is moved around the system, which intermediaries are taking a cut of that transaction, and why,” said the submission filed by Guardian News & Media Australia (GNMA).
“The lack of market information undermines the ability for brands to plan the most effective ways to spend their marketing budgets, or to select the most efficient partners with whom to place marketing spend.
“GNMA believes that by eliminating opacity by design we could begin to restore the link between advertising and the content and activity it funds, creating accountability and generating an impetus for platforms and websites to take greater social responsibility for how they derive revenues from digital advertising.”
In its submission, The Guardian described its experiences in testing the programmatic supply chain in the UK which discovered publishers receive just 30% of online revenues and called on the ACCC to recommend a transparent system.
“GNMA believes that there is a need for the ACCC to consider a step change in accountability through the establishment of a transparent system of receipting for digital advertising transactions in order to shine a light on the activities of digital intermediaries, for the benefit of both advertiser and seller.”
The Guardian went on to say it supported the ACCC’s proposals to restrict digital platforms’ acquisitions and the establishment of new media and advertising regulators along with a call for Australia to adopt a GDPR style privacy regime that would apply to local advertisers and media companies.
The newspaper group also called for news subscriptions to be deductible and exempt for GST but questioned the effectiveness of the government’s Regional and Small Publishers’ Jobs and Innovation package.
Ha ha this is completely unnecessary as the programmatic world is not a cesspool and no one over charges clients for anything.
Look! Squirrels over there!
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We don’t ask for this level of transparency in any other transactions, ie. what % are going to the grower/builder, manufacturer, distributor, retailer
Advertisers and Marketers need to educate themselves on the supply chain of programmatic, if they are worried about their money not reaching the publisher, go direct, but I daresay they’ll tell you the markup at each of the points.
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No we don’t ask for this level of transparency in other industries, but builders don’t typically charge for bricks and then build houses out of straw, and retailers don’t typically sell Target t-shirts and pass them off Gucci. This needs cleaning up.
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@But it’s not the same
Given everything happening in the construction industry lately your “charge for bricks and then build houses out of straw” comment might not actually be too far off the mark…
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Haha. It’s not a problem if you benefit from the estimated 9% of value that leaks out of the global ad chain in as fraud. Or work for an ad tech firm whose revenues have grown by xxx% in recent years. The data to make it work already exists, it’s not a big stretch. It’s just that ad vendors strip out IDs before the data reaches client or publisher. Haha.
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