• by Joe Mandese , 2 hours ago

Nearly a decade after it was first conceived, the Institute for Advertising Ethics is rapidly evolving from its roots as the ad industry's professional certification platform -- educating, testing and certifying ad pros across a range of industry practices -- to something that has more ethical teeth: self-regulation.

The IAE's new model (see graphic above) comes as the the institute has certified more than 7,000 industry execs on general ethical indsutry practices, as well as specific ones covering a range of rapidly changing subject areas -- from influencer marketing to greenwashing and artificial intelligence -- and includes consultation and collaboration with the federal regulators at Federal Trade Commission, as well as other industry professional associations, including the tech industry's IEEE.

The first new new offering to emerge from the self-regulatory shift is the Advertising Incident Reporting System (AIRS), which has quietly rolled out in alpha in recent weeks and has begun publishing and distribution weekly snapshots of major ad industry-related incidents to help inform industry insiders, federal regulators, as well as the public at large.

The alpha version of the AIRS system initially utilizes AI to help aggregate major incidents reported by the FTC, other self-regulatory industry associations such as the BBB National Programs, as well as published news reports, but an upcoming release will enable consumers and industry pros alike to effectively blow the whistle on what contributors perceive as less-than-ethical advertising practices.

Importantly, all of the incidents -- both public and self-reported ones -- are being tagged and organized utilizing a taxonomy based on the IAE's original and evolving principles for what constitutes ethical advertising practices.

"We began with education and certification, but the IAE now is a public interest educational foundation building the capabilities and standards for trustworthy advertising, especially in the age of AI," explains Andrew Susman, who helped found the IAE and currently serves as its president.

The goal of the incident reporting system, as well as the IAE's collaboration with the a working group on the ethical use of AI in advertising organized in partnership with the IEEE, are to be a resource for the industry, regulators and consumers alike as they navigate through rapidly evolving technology and new, uncharted industry practices.

In the meantime, anyone can access the weekly incident reports here.