Council For Accountable Advertising Launches

  • by March 22, 2011

Stephen-Messer

The ad technology industry now has its own trade group: the Council for Accountable Advertising. "Advertising technology has continued to grow and get more complex," explains Stephen Messer, vice chairman of Cross Commerce Media and chairman of the new Council.

"People have focused on the bells and whistles of the technology, but have forgotten the key themes, [they are] making buying decisions more complicated than they need to be."

"In the market, many of the companies fighting to survive have to scream as loud as they can and create differentiators to stay alive," Messer says. "The council is about removing the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the marketplace so that when a buyer chooses a council member, they know they are getting honest, clear information from the leaders in the marketplace."

In addition to Cross Commerce, the CAA was formed by MediaMath and TARGUSinfo, with other members at launch including Admeld, AdSafe, AudienceScience, Peer39, Solve Media and TidalTV.

Says Messer: "We spent a lot of time on formulating standards for membership that set the bar high enough to be a useful tool in distinguishing what's best of breed from fluff."

Members are also discussing ways to work together, Messer said. "What that means is that if you decide to adopt Cross Commerce Media and then determine that you need TARGUSinfo for your data, MediaMath's trading platform or any of the other amazing technologies offered by our members, we are discussing ways to make implementation easier among council members."

"We've made it hard on our customers," Messer admits, pointing to "something as simple as wanting data about how consumers are responding to your marketing efforts." He notes the complicated names, like analytics and real time data management, and categories -- platforms and data systems -- en route to a company's goals.

"Our most profound initiative is to serve as an industry curator for the best the advertising technology sector has to offer," Messer says. While member companies can nominate publishers and advertisers to serve on CAA committees, Messer stressed that the organization is about leaders of ad tech companies "clarifying the market by simplifying how the market discusses itself." In addition to Messer, other CAA officers at launch include: chief research officer: Joanna O'Connell, senior analyst at Forrester Research; co-chief research officer: Colin Gillis, director of research at BGC Financial; chief academic officer: Evan Korth, clinical associate professor of computer science at NYU and co-founder of hackNY.

O'Connell and Korth will establish research and academic committees, respectively. Forrester Research analyst Michael Greene will be part of the research committee, and Marianna Makri of the University of Miami's School of Business Administration will serve on the academic committee.

"Just like Amazon made it easier for consumers to shop, and Apple made it easier for them to compute, the Council for Accountable Advertising's goal is to make it easier for marketers and publishers to manage and measure their resources," says Messer.

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