• by Joe Mandese , August 16, 2017

In an important endorsement of the TrustX initiative launched earlier this year by digital publishing trade group Digital Content Next (DCN), the Association of National Advertisers is throwing its full weight behind the program to help facilitate trust and transparency in programmatic media-buying.

“Trust, safety, and transparency have dominated the digital media conversation in recent years,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice in announcing the initiative.

“The supply chain’s complexity and opacity net digital advertisers as little as 30 cents to 40 cents of working media for every dollar spent,” ANA CEO Bob Liodice said in a statement announcing the ANA’s endorsement of TrustX, adding: “Digital ROI has become harder to achieve. The ANA’s mission is to reverse this troubling trend and elevate digital working media to 70 cents or higher. Doing so will convert $20 billion into working media.”

To participate, the ANA said members must allocate a portion of their digital ad budgets through TrustX to the 30 “premium content publishers” that are part of TrustX, including such companies as ABC, A&E Networks, CBS Interactive, Conde Nast, ESPN, Hearst, Meredith, NBC Universal, News Corp., Viacom, and The Washington Post.

The ANA did not specify what the portion required is, but said the main benefits are that advertisers will only pay for transactions certified as human and viewable in a “brand-safe” environment, 100% supply-side transparency, access to an “ad-tech tax scorecard,” as well as a new industry benchmark for the ROI of programmatic media-buying.