Event Report- The role of IASH

As the Internet has grown, the use of ad networks has soared, with the practice now accounting for more than 40% of all digital advertising spend in the UK.  However, without standards in place, there are chances that ads can appear in inappropriate websites featuring adult or violent content, that could harm the brand’s image by association.

Khalil Ibrahimi, our speaker at last week’s Directors Dinner, is founder of Unanimis. He said the network “runs a tight ship”, so when the agencies and brands started to complain about this bad placement they felt that they could do something to fix the issue in collaboration with a few other well run ad networks.

This is where IASH was born from. Khalil, along with James Aitken launched IASH, a self regulatory body that oversees the way sales houses trade. This trade body now sits under the IAB in the UK and is its largest and most active committee. The first online trading code of conduct has created significant traction and is currently being replicated in 2 other European countries.

IASH aims to audit ‘blind networks’ to provide a level of security for agencies and brands when booking bulk buy ad campaigns. The organization currently has 22 members, with more in process.

The aim is for ad networks to be self-policing and they offer three main categories of inventory – standard, optional and warranted. Standard is as you would assume, run of site spare inventory from reputable sites, then optional includes un-policed sites like the social networks. Finally, warranted is generally for US sites which don’t fall under the audit restrictions but are usually still reputable, such as Yahoo US.

Subscirtions to IASH are 2% of net revenues or £5000, so it is not too difficult to join the club. You do have to pay for an ABCe process audit on top of this, which will fall in a random month. ABCe will ask for a month’s worth of IOs then match what was delivered and reported and check permissions were adhered to. The default is standard inventory, naturally.

Khalil said the IAB were originally “a bit miffed” when they heard about a new trade body being set up, but after meeting with IASH they realised their intentions were honourable and have now reached agreement to bring IASH into the IAB as a council and they will soon appoint a full time manager. This is in part due to James Aitken stepping down as chair and in the meantime there is an interim chair, Richard Sharp. 

Richard comments on his new role: "IASH is continually striving to improve the Code of Conduct and how it communicates with the wider industry and advertisers. We know IASH is not perfect but it is getting better -- we've grown from 12 members two years ago, to 22 today and next year have a target of 30 members. 

“We will only get stronger with the support of the wider industry and we value all constructive feedback.  There's a lot of time and money being poured into IASH and thanks to the personal dedication of the founders and various committee members IASH will go from strength to strength."

As an example of IASH’s work, Khalil talked of a big furor earlier in the year when Panorama picked up on an O2 campaign being run on a PS fight site, the agencies were up in arms too but actually is was their misplaced buy that lead to the problem. 

Two of the agencies involved also refused to hand over info on which sales houses were involved, so Khalil told them to ‘stick it’ as IASH cannot solve or investigate problems without the facts required. It is this type of situation that the code of conduct is there to police and sales houses will be thrown out of IASH if they break this code.

IASH have certainly come a long way in a short time, especially when you compare it to other media such as TV, which took decades to get this type of best practice in place. 

Khalil added that the recession could also be advantageous for sales houses as advertisers will be keen to make good low cost bulk ad buys.

We then took questions and comments from the floor. Jamie Riddell of digital agency Cheeze said that they only buy IASH audited inventory as a general rule unless they already have a relationship with the company like OTP Media.

OTP Media were in attendance, and said they are not currently in IASH but considering it, however, they have been around for many years and have a good reputation to rely on for now.

Jamie said he would also do business with Federica from .Fox Networks who are not in IASH too but again as they are reputable and in the process of auditing for IASH now.

He said that numerous new networks call and when he asks about IASH they often disappear without trace rather than enter into a conversation about where they stand on IASH.

Mark Terry-Lush of Renegade asked what IASH will look like in a few years and Khalil responded that there needs to be a technical solution for auditing to ensure that it doesn’t fizzle out.

John Woods at Synature mentioned that IASH could be used as a template for self regulation in other parts of the digital sector as its better to do it ourselves than have it enforced by government regulators like Ofcom.

In conclusion my view is that IASH can only be a good thing and it will aid agencies and advertisers to feel more confident of bulk network buys.  I’d like to say a massive thank you to Khalil Ibrahimi, Unanimis, for his insights inot IASH and all the guest for attending which included Federica Aperio, .Fox Networks; Oliver Whitten, Advertising.com; Xavier Adam , AMC Networks; Laurent Gibbr, Criteo; Pascal Gauthier, Criteo; David Franklin, Envisional; Ian Woolley, OTP Media; Simond Ffiske, OTP Media; Jamie Riddle, Cheeze; Mark Terry-Lush, Renegade Media; Caroline Tuenissen, Head London.

The next Netimperative Directors Dinner is taking place on Thursday November 6th and our guest speaker is Nicole Yershon, Director of Innvoation for OgilvyOne. The full details are on our site here and email events@netimperative.com to register for a place at £95 per head.