• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 20, 2012

Madison Avenue’s Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) this morning unveiled “Your AdChoices,” a campaign aimed at educating consumers about “interest-based" advertising and how to take greater control of their online privacy.” The pro bono campaign, which was created by the Salt Lake City office of McCann Worldgroup’s MRM unit, is the latest installment of the ad industry’s ongoing push to develop “best practices” for collecting and using consumer data via its “advertising option” icon, and to educate the public and lobby regulators to avoid onerous legislation regulating online advertising and marketing.

MRM’s ads, which are the initial flight of what the DAA says will be a “multiphase” online campaign, seeks to do that with some old Madison Avenue standbys: entertainment and humor.

“It’s incumbent upon our industry to build trust and respect amongst consumers regarding the brands we work for, especially with regard to interest-based advertising,” states Lori Feld, managing director of the Salt Lake City office of  MRM that created the campaign. “In our global McCann study, ‘Truth About Privacy,’ published last year, consumers clearly defined the value exchange and control they expect.”

Feld said MRM intentionally focused on making the ads “fun and charming” and avoided “industry jargon that reinforces fear.” Like say, the term “interest-based advertising?"

The initial flight of banner ads are designed to direct consumers – and presumably lawmakers – to the DAA’s icon and links to a new website (www.youradchoices.com), which features three “educational videos and a user-friendly consumer choice mechanism.”

“The consumer choice page enables consumers to opt out of interest-based advertising from the companies that participate in the DAA’s self-regulatory program,” the trade group said, utilizing more than a smidgeon of industry jargon.