That’s the view of one ad-tech exec who says advertisers may have to accept that what comes after cookies is several different solutions altogether.

But Ryanne Laredo, Amobee Chief Customer Officer, says that it’s perfectly possible to stitch together those solutions in a meaningful way, so that advertisers can benefit frmo an overdue upgrade to traditional ad-tech infrastructure.

Shifting norms

Three main trends are challenging accepted ad techniques:

1. Third-party cookies are being deprecated.
2. Privacy legislation like GDPR and CCPA are forcing advertisers and platforms to move to opt-in tracking.
3. But advertisers and publishers may be sitting on first-party audience data, or at least an opportunity to collect it – more valuable than old methods.

Laredo explains why this emerging ecosystem will be an improvement, not a downgrade.

Amobee’s Ryanne Laredo: Combatting Covid-19 Misinformation with Industry Partners

After the cookie

“There’s so much in the news about the dire straits that our industry is in because of privacy and technology challenges that are pending or changes that are pending,” Laredo says.

“I have a different POV on that.

“What we previously had in our reliance on cookie  was not the best for consumers, and it also wasn’t ever fully realised potential. Cookies were really a hack on a hack and we need to do better.

“Every challenge gives us an opportunity to rethink what is the balance of personalization and privacy for consumers.”

Join Amobee on December 17th as we discuss the necessity of creating a future-proof consumer identity strategy in a conversation with Philip Smolin, @Forrester’s Joanna O’Connell and @MolsonCoors' Megan Sullivan. Click here to register: https://t.co/FrCfmTT8Ln

— Amobee (@amobee) December 1, 2020

Patchwork of solutions

Technologies are being put in place to enable that future, of course. But, thanks to that and to different marketers’ different data maturities, Laredo doesn’t imagine any single one of them being a direct replacement.

Rather, we are emerging toward a patchwork of solutions.

“I don’t believe there’s a one size fits all,” she says. “There are people who are data-rich who have one-to-one relationships, a lot of e-commerce platforms who already have the necessary consent to do highly personalised advertising, but, in those cases, they don’t necessarily have the opportunity to pass that consent outside of their own walls.

“A big focus is having an ability to just tie different solutions together because not everyone is going to choose this same identity partner.

“Then there are advertisers who I wouldn’t consider data-poor, but have less one-to-one relationships in a digital world with consumers and they must have a way to enrich the information that they have.”

Our investments into innovation extend beyond beverages. We are partnering with @LiveRamp and @Amobee to develop an alternative to the third-party cookie. Get the scoop from @mikejuangnews in @adage: https://t.co/PG9awu7peA

— Molson Coors Beverage Company (@MolsonCoors) November 23, 2020

Key considerations

Laredo says balancing interoperability for privacy, consent and identity solutions is paramount to advertisers’ success.

She is encouraging advertisers to consider three factors as they do so:

1. Establishment: “What does your current one-to-one relationship look like? Is it necessary to maintain the level of information that you have about those consumers? Do you have their permission?”
2. Enrichment: “How do you enrich that relationship with the consumer so they know that you care about their privacy? How do you have this two way conversation that says, ‘I care about your privacy, but I’m going to use data to make your experience better and that value exchange is understood and able to be’?”
3. Interconnection: “Utilising the right technologies that can interact between partners to honour that relationship and that value exchange that you have gathered from your customers or from consumers as a whole.”

Partner for personalization

Just as there will be no one-size-fits-all solution, no one company in isolation can bring results to customers.

Laredo says Amobee relies on partnerships with data companies like TransUnion, Tapad and LiveRamp to enable “data-rich strategies”.

She says connected TV is going to be a big focus in 2021, after TransUnion published a study suggesting a 70% increase in consumers’ time investment in the channel.

You are watching “The New Media Reality: A Consumer-Centric View of Identity and Personalization Emerges,” a Beet.TV Leadership Series presented by Transunion. For more videos, please visit this page.

Weeks ago, even before the US had truly taken action, an engineer made a call to action at Amobee to see what the company could do about it as an intermediary between multiple corners of the media. 

“We came up with a concept which is that we wanted to combat misinformation, starting in the U.S., that was out there regarding COVID-19 so that we could influence people to make the right decisions. With the right data, you can make the right decisions,” Laredo says. 

Inspired by an article in AdExchanger by industry friend Joshua Lowcock about the need for the industry to come together during the current crisis, Laredo connected with Lowcock and the partnership spread outward from there.

“One thing that drove all of us is that we, as technology [companies], as agencies, as advertisers, as broadcasters, have a responsibility to the population and that is to combat misinformation as well as to continue to invest in information that is truthful and support journalism on that front,” Laredo says. 

The goal that sprouted from there was to get in front of as many viewers as possible with accurate information. They kicked off the campaign by producing PSAs about getting factual information and targeted COVID content using Amobee’s brand intelligence tool. Within a week, they had agency partners, verification partners, publishers and SSP friends and more on board. Partners are UniversalMcCann, Publicis Media, Influential, OpenX, IAS, DoubleVerify, NewsGuard, eBay Advertising, AdColony, SpotX, Rubicon Project, True[X] and The Krim Group.

“We decided that we had to have a coalition because there were so many smart people,” Laredo says. “So many people who were aimed at making a difference and driving forward the truth that we had to take a pause and look at our strategy.”

The expansion has grown over the past few weeks. The coalition has served over 500 million impressions to 300 million individuals globally. Organizations involved, many of whom are competitors, have offered various ways to help. 

Laredo also spoke about news consumption and brand safety. Most companies’ first response to the pandemic was to ask, “What does this do to my company and what does this do to my brand?” According to Laredo, this led to a careful balance of advertisers not wanting to appear to be taking advantage of an unfortunate situation but also looking out for the best interests of their employees and organization at large. In order to deal with this, Laredo said that organizations should be concerned with brand suitability over brand safety. 

“Brand suitability really takes in brand values,” Laredo says. “And so things like news, where previously there may not have been a way to prevent you from sharing your brand on the same page as something about COVID-19, is that something that you really want to be avoiding as a brand safety measure versus something that has unsuitable content.”

As a result, there’s been a push to get advertising back on news, which is one of the goals of this coalition. 

“We are continuing as an industry to support the journalism that is essential during times like these and on an ongoing basis.” Laredo says.