New York, NY - March 11, 2020 - AdLedger, the research consortium developing the global standards for the application of innovative technologies in digital media, today released a study showing only 6% of brands, agencies, and publishers are satisfied with the current digital advertising ecosystem. Additionally, 92% of respondents believe there is a need for industry-wide standardization. The study was in partnership with MadHive, an advanced TV advertising solutions company and founding member of AdLedger.
“Digital advertising is still suffering from the same issues of transparency, fraud and fragmentation,” said Christiana Cacciapuoti, Executive Director at AdLedger. “And it’s because we just keep slapping band-aids on a fundamentally broken system, when we need to be developing a new infrastructure that’s driven by innovative technologies.”
“The AdTech ecosystem absolutely needs to be changed,” said Alysia Borsa, EVP/Chief Business & Data Officer at Meredith Corporation. “There is a lack of transparency which leads to fraud, which leads to low quality, which leads to poor performance. It’s a really bad cycle.”
The study was conducted by the research firm Industry Index, who executed the quantitative survey of 100 brand marketers, agencies, and digital publishers to understand the current and future states of adtech from key stakeholders across the ecosystem. Other findings include: 83% of respondents believe cryptography can be used to create transparencies and efficiencies, most often agreeing that cryptography could improve problems associated with fraud (66%) and the ability to track results (66%). And 72% believe we will see significant integrations in the next five years.
“Sooner or later, the industry is going to realize that this dysfunctional relationship has got to end, and the only way to fix it is with next-generation technologies,” said Adam Helfgott, CEO at MadHive. “And with blockchain and cryptography already weeding out fraud and solving similar issues on OTT, it’s only a matter of time till the industry stands together and overhauls the system.”
AdLedger was originally founded by MadHive, TEGNA and IBM to unite the advertising industry towards developing next-generation technology standards that solve the current issues in the ecosystem. The non-profit research consortium includes members like Omnicom's OMG, Publicis's Publicis Media, IPG's Reprise Digital, WPP's GroupM, The Hershey Company, Meredith, Hearst and 50 other key industry stakeholders, who are working together to lay the foundation for the future of advertising.
About AdLedger
AdLedger is the nonprofit research and development consortium charged with implementing global technical standards and solutions for the application of blockchain to digital media. The consortium is comprised of industry-leading companies who have joined forces with the goal of furthering trust and transparency within the digital media space.
About MadHive
MadHive is an end-to-end advanced advertising solution for digital video that leverages cryptography, blockchain, and AI to deliver evidence-based business outcomes. MadHive's next-generation advertising suite provides precision targeting, audience verification, as well as the first OTT-first device graph and cross-device attribution, while addressing the biggest threats to the advertising industry -- the issues of trust, transparency, fraud and brand safety.
