Digital advertising’s biggest trade organization, the IAB, took a shot at Apple on Monday. Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework undermines advertising, according to the IAB, even as Apple builds its own ad business.
“Apple is fine with advertising, as long as they get to control it on their terms,” IAB CEO David Cohen told hundreds of industry leaders who gathered Monday on Marco Island, Florida. “Apple exemplifies the cynicism and hypocrisy that underpins the prevailing extremist view.”
Apple is “attacking [the industry] from the inside out,” Cohen said.
The IAB also blasted legislators’ branding of personalized advertising as a form of surveillance capitalism.
“It’s time to call out this dystopian nonsense for what it is: insane,” Cohen told the audience.
Hours after Cohen’s speech was delivered – and generated a flurry of texts, emails and social media reactions – AdExchanger sat down with Cohen and IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur to talk about the industry’s existential threats and what the IAB plans to do about them.
As it turns out, the IAB and its members aren’t just angry at Apple because of the wrecking ball that is ATT. They’re angry about being ignored. What the IAB really wants is for Apple to pull up a chair and listen.
AdExchanger: What kind of reaction have you gotten so far about your opening speech?
DAVID COHEN: Obviously the sensational part was Apple. But the scene in DC is equally important. There are folks who would like to put us entirely out of business. They think, “Data is bad. Advertising is bad. Kill Bad Tech.” And in so doing, they’re going to kill the rest of the ecosystem.
If ADPA [the American Data Privacy and Protection Act] had passed, we would have been f***ed. It’s totally restricting even first-party data use. It’s lights out.
What was the meeting you referenced in your speech, where Apple walked away from the table?
COHEN: In the early days of PRAM [Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media], we got several Apple folks to show up to three meetings before ATT rolled out. They told us what they were planning to do. And we were like, “WTF. This is going to kneecap our industry.” Why don’t you approach this like you approach other things on your operating system? Like exact location or general location, select one picture or many pictures? Give consumers a choice. They were like, “Thank you for your input.” And they did it anyway.
And in the meantime, they are building a DSP, maybe. They are hiring ad tech people like crazy. It’s talking out of both sides of your mouth.
You talked about losing this consumer battle, where consumers don’t understand what advertising does for small businesses and the economy. But I would say the reverse is true of Apple. Everyone sees Apple as the protector of consumer privacy. How does that dynamic factor into the battle underway with Apple?
COHEN: There are some people who believe that what Apple tells them is exactly right. We need to set the record straight.
We intend to align on a set of messages to consumers that explains the value proposition for responsible use of their data – and free news, entertainment and communications – in return for personalized advertising. That’s a several-hundred-million-dollar endeavor. We don’t have that kind of money. So what we are going to do is align on a set of messages and have each of our members, if they so choose, create ads based on this messaging.
The cat is out of the bag with ATT. If you could have Apple do anything now, what would that be?
KATSUR: Come to the table and participate. If privacy is a concern, give feedback on the compliance frameworks we’ve developed. Be more vocal in the W3C meetings.
COHEN: Just show up. The industry is not the devil.
Does the role of a trade organization change during an economic downturn?
COHEN: In the past week alone, 40,000 people in our industry were let go. That’s real people’s livelihoods. My hope is that it’s just a correction from overexuberance or overhiring during the pandemic. In 2021, the industry grew 35%. That’s not going to happen again. But we’re a fact-based, research organization. We asked 230 buyers what 2023 will look like, and it’s going to be up 6%. CTV is going to grow 14%.
Tell me about the public policy team that you’ve assembled.
COHEN: Between Lartease Tiffith and our public policy team and Michael Hahn and his legal team, we’ve never had more people focused in this area. We have to corral our members, get them to speak with one voice, which is not always easy to do, and respond in kind to all of the stuff that’s been going on, from the FTC to the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act. There’s been a lot of activity in the past year.
You mentioned “speaking with one voice.” How do you think about what that one voice is when you have a lot of competitors in the same organization together?
At the risk of being overly dramatic, it takes an existential crisis to get the industry together. We have 350 lawyers who show up, week in and week out, to the legal side of the house. We align on principles, the things we can agree on. And there are things we don’t agree on.
We’ve got brands, we’ve got agencies, we’ve got ad tech, we’ve got publishers, we’ve got platforms, we have a technical standard-setting body. Who else has anything like that? This is the place where that action has to happen.
How do you see this “one voice” challenge playing out on the Tech Lab side of the business?
TONY KATSUR: We’re less challenged in bringing together cohesive technical standards. Frankly, that’s easier to get done than agreeing on policy. David has a higher mountain to climb. Once that’s ironed out, our job is to put together those technical standards and frameworks for the ecosystem.
COHEN: Calling out Apple for their inability to work with industry at all is notable. Google works with us day in and day out. They participate. We don’t always agree. But at least they are at the table. Apple, wake the f*** up. Whatever you do needs to work for regulators, consumers and industry – and they excluded industry entirely.
What are the Tech Lab’s 2023 priorities?
KATSUR: Many are multiyear initiatives. First is continued investment in our privacy compliance frameworks. This isn’t self-regulation. It’s how to comply with the law. Auditing around privacy is going to be a key issue this year. In advanced TV, it’s how to create a universal signaling framework across all TV environments. And sustainability. We are going to start working on technical standards to get the baseline level of data to the industry so it can start measuring carbon.
We made it through this whole interview without talking about cookies. So now I have to ask: What’s your take on the end of the third-party cookie?
COHEN: It’s going to be so anticlimactic. The market is already there. We already have 50% less signal than we had before.
KATSUR: Things like adoption curves may be slower than we like until it actually happens, but there are frameworks in place and coming into place over the next year. It will be anticlimactic because we will be relatively prepared. For a change.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
