Advertisers and agencies alike must step up to tackle challenges such ad blocking, fraud and transparency for the sake of the industry, says Stephan Loerke, chief executive of the World Federation of Advertisers.
In a punchy interview with The Drum, in partnership with AudienceScience, Loerke talks about the issues of trust, especially in light of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA, US) report of earlier this month.
He says: “I think that it is interesting to take a step back and look at the challenges facing the industry. Ad blocking, ad fraud, transparency, ad viewability – all these are pretty fundamental questions that we need to be addressing as an industry collectively.”
Loerke says that ad fraud in particular is not only an issue for advertisers and agencies but something that has repercussions for “people and society as a whole”.
He says that clients probably have not been involved enough in understanding the way their money was being spent. He points to the ANA report and says that while the industry can “live with” rebates, they must be disclosed.
In the video interview Loerke also talks about how major blue-chip companies are re-engineering their marketing efforts by bringing in start-up companies in order to accelerate innovation.
