• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, 7 hours ago

It is AdWeeek in New York, and on Oct. 15, the advertisingwhocares.org event in London will take place. Disclaimer: I have contributed to two workstreams at the London event. Advertising: Who Cares (AWC) is different from all other industry events, in that it brings together industry representatives with a focus on reinventing the industry.

Per the AWC manifesto: “We believe that Advertising is an important industry which is a driver of economic success and people’s attitudes and behavior.... At its best it engages and entertains the public and provides the majority of funds for the world’s media. However, in recent times it has become demonstrably less effective at building brands, and also less popular with the public as a result of bombardment and a perceived lack of responsibility towards people’s data and privacy.”

These events present a perfect moment to review the marketing industry’s progress on some of the issues. In 2018, I reviewed the World Federation of Advertisers' (WFA) Global Media Charter, which outlined an industry grappling with a fundamental breakdown in trust between marketers and agencies.

To be clear, the WFA’s 2018 charter was a necessary attempt to fix the plumbing of a broken digital ecosystem. The WFA urged its members to embrace the following:

* Zero tolerance for ad fraud

* Strict brand safety protection

* Minimum viewability thresholds

* Transparency throughout the supply chain

* Third-party verification and measurement

There was a clear focus on accountability and transparency. As executives from VW and Diageo stated at the time, the rejection of impartial measurement and poor viewability standards was "inadmissible" and "unacceptable."The fight was for basic quality control and to halt the financial bleeding from a murky supply chain.

But as I stated in my post in 2018, the charter had two key weaknesses: It had no teeth to enforce these principles, and it listed consumers and their experience dead last.

And so here we are in 2025, and the conversation has obviously evolved. While the plumbing issues of 2018 haven't disappeared, the agenda for advertisingwhocares.org is less about technical mechanics and more about our industry's broader role. The dominant topics are:

1. The Rise of AI: Generative AI is rewriting the rules of creative and media buying, bringing with it profound ethical questions about synthetic media, job displacement, and algorithmic bias that were barely imaginable in 2018.

2.  Sustainability and Conscience: The conversation has moved beyond brand safety to brand suitability and even brand contribution. Advertisers are now sometimes even considering the carbon footprint of their media buys and whether their ad dollars are funding quality journalism or misinformation.

3.  The Privacy-First Web: The death of the third-party cookie has forced a complete rethink of data and measurement, shifting power to publishers and platforms with first-party data.

The primary difference today is a shift in focus from technical trust (Is my ad being seen by a human?) to societal trust (Is my advertising a net positive for my customers, the industry and the world?)

In 2025, we’re fighting for the soul of our industry. Let’s hope the conversations at Advertising Who Cares and AdWeek NY reflect this profound and necessary evolution.