New DAA AdChoices for Video Ads Starts April 1st and It’s No Joke

If you’re a marketer, privacy officer, or IT professional, it seems like everywhere you turn, people are talking about the fast-approaching May 25^th deadline when enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) begins. But there’s another privacy deadline that looms even closer but has received far less attention. On April 1, 2018,* the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) principles for Interest Based Advertising (IBA) goes into effect for video ads in desktop and mobile web environments.

Since the inception of the DAA principles in 2009, (commonly referred to as the AdChoices program) they have expanded at generally the same pace as the advertising industry has, except for video. Well, that is about to change.

But first, for those unfamiliar with the AdChoices program, you may be asking "What is AdChoices?" Here’s a brief explanation. AdChoices is a self-regulatory program that gives audiences information about the ads they see and why they are seeing them.

You’ve likely been on a website and seen a display ad with a small arrow icon, like in the screenshot below – look at the upper right-hand corner:

When a user sees an AdChoices advertising icon like this one, that means the ad they’re seeing was specifically been served to them based on their browsing information (cookie profile). In this case, perhaps the person visited the American Express website recently, or they’ve been reading about savings account interest rates.

By clicking on the AdChoices advertising icon, users can get more insight into why they’re seeing this particular ad. Here’s an example of what a user sees when they click the AdChoices advertising icon in the American Express example above:

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the AdChoices advertising program is that users can also select whether they’d like to continue seeing ads like that one, or if they’d prefer to opt-out. The purpose of the program is to make consumers feel more comfortable about what’s happening to their data, and give them a say in the matter, or, in other words, clear AdChoices.

With online video ads exploding in growth between 2009- 2017, the 13.2 billion dollar video market has become an attractive form of retargeting for advertisers. Due to this growth and effect on the industry, the DAA has been expected to pass guidance for some time now. In 2015, it was deemed commercially reasonable that the industry would implement DAA Principles onto video IBA.

However, in an unexpected turn, there was a lack of well-developed industry standards for displaying online video ads. As a result, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) delayed enforcement of the DAA compliance until April 1^st, 2018. Currently, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has a well-developed set of guidelines in place within their Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) 3.0 and 4.0 version. Both 3.0 and 4.0 allow for enhanced notice and support the DAA Icon. With these clear guidelines, it is expected that “all interest-based video ads have the enhanced notice in or around the ad itself or provided by the first party on the third parties behalf.”³

Neither the DAA nor the enforcement arm of the BBB specifies a certain means to supplying enhanced notice, but as long as the “solution is clear, meaningful and prominent, and leads consumers to requisite information…the enhanced notice link will meet DAA compliance."⁴

As the first go-to-market solution for powering the experience described above for display ads, we are excited to announce that our Ad Notice product (formerly from Evidon, which Crownpeak acquired last year) can now provide the same functionality for video ads.

Completely customizable, Ad Notice helps advertisers, agencies, and ad techs comply with AdChoices as per the DAA Principles for video - both VAST 3.0/4.0, and soon to be VPAID.

So, if you’re interested in building a stronger bond with your audience based on trust, it’s time to consider providing your audience with more transparency and control over what’s happening to their data. Let us know if you’d like to schedule some time to talk.