Ad trade bodies unveil data transparency label inspired by food traffic light labelling

The label, unveiled at Advertising Week New York today (October 1), reportedly took a year to develop and as well as measuring the health of data, will archive the information on a centralized database to house the label information. It will also host an associated compliance program that tracks data disclosure, certification and validation

The groups said the tool will help “responsible marketers” better use audience data more responsibly and deliver more relevant and contextual digital ads.

The label will will reveal who provided the data segment, inclusive of contact information, for both data solution distributor and, where applicable, the original data provider. It will also reveal information around the audience segment, its geographical coverage and how it was constructed – including any applicable modelling or cross-device ID expansion, audience refresh rates, and event lookback window for inclusion. Finally included is the data source and the techniques used to gather it.

Companies in the space have six months to consult on and help develop the tool. They are invited to test it by using fifty common syndicated audience segments provided by the likes of Oracle Data Cloud, LiveRamp, Neustar, Lotame, Acxiom, Experian, TruSignal, Fluent and FullContact.

Tom Benton, ANA Group executive vice president of the DMA Division, said: “Client-side marketers and fundraisers have been demanding better standards around data quality and integrity. We felt it was important to corral several industry wide initiatives into one industry standard to enhance efficiency and to improve the toolset that client-side marketers and fundraisers use to make important decisions about data segments.

“The industry now has a well-considered, easy to use and easy to understand label that clearly defines critical data source information. We hope that the transparency this label brings will be a driving force that improves data integrity, data quality, and the decisions that marketers and fundraisers make every day.”

Dennis Buchheim, senior vice president and general manager of the IAB Tech Lab, said: “The collaboration with ANA, CIMM, ARF, and IAB – alongside complementary Tech Lab efforts to facilitate privacy-compliant data access and activation through a common ID namespace – enables more effective and responsible use of data in marketing and helps improve consumer ad experiences. As a whole, these initiatives provide a foundation to support digital marketing’s ongoing role in funding content and services.”

Marketers are invited to participate in the proof of concept and public comment process by contacting participate@datalabel.org.

Such a system will aim to help brands from contravening the GDPR legislation. Most recently it was Facebook that fell victim to a hack that risked user data.