GABBCON and AdLedger Launch New Blockchain Education Initiative

Blockchain was a top discussion point last year, but after the initial burst not much has appeared in the press.  However, that doesn't mean that blockchain is any less important ... or its rollout dormant in any way.  In fact, according to the AdLedger Conference hosted in partnership with GABBCON, Dear Marketers: Help Me Help You, there has been decisive progress in rolling out the protocol in the media industry.  One major initiative is the creation of Ad Ledger, which is described as a "forum for collaboration" by Gabe Greenberg, Co-Founder GABBCON.  Over the span of two years, Ad Ledger has quietly ramped up. Christiana Cacciapuoti as Executive Director, just announced a set of  board members (including c-founding companies as Tegna, MadHIve and IBM), holding-company members and new rules of engagement.  The most important aspect of Ad Ledger at this time is to educate the industry and present the parameters of what blockchain can and can't do.

The GABBCON announcement is the first salvo -- and now, the rest of 2019 is dedicated to taking the industry forward with members seeking eventual accreditation by the MRC.  Greenberg and his team are on the cutting edge of this blockchain roll out.  We met at the conference for an exclusive interview on the whys and wherefores of Ad Ledger, how it will impact the industry, next steps and obstacles to overcome.

GABBCON helped co-launch Ad Ledger and then transferred the GABBCON working group into it.  Becoming a founding partner was important, Greenberg explained, "because we saw an opportunity to bring buyers and sellers together in a way that the IAB and other groups weren't doing."  He noted that his company is participating to support the work that Ad Ledger is doing, including "breaking down the walled gardens and creating new open standards that help brands and agencies on one side and media sellers on the other side to extract the most value out of the market and pay as little for that as possible."  The way to this economic efficiency is by "cutting out the intermediaries and the folks that represent ad taxes," he added.

Greenberg has his eye on accreditation, which is necessary for scale and adoption.  "The team is in the early stages of working with the MRC," he indicated.  "It takes some time but the process is starting."

Looking to the future, Greenberg hopes that two years from now Ad Ledger will be at a point where the group "is chasing the scale of an IAB, develops a cryptoRTB standard that reaches a significant scale of the market, is not still in its infancy or nascent stage and that more and more brands are involved."

Currently, Hershey's and Bob Mills Furniture are involved and other brands were in attendance at the event for a look-see.  "But we need to get more brands that are demanding these solutions to come to the table and help form them," Greenberg asserted.  "More than anything Ad Ledger is a call to the industry to come together.  We don't need another consortium that's come and gone.  We need a group that is making real impact and making a difference."

For Wallace Kittredge, Senior Content Strategist for Bob Mills Furniture, a regional retailer of furniture, blockchain and participation in Ad Ledger will help his company explore more options, help justify their digital and offline budgets and close loops.  "Reporting is difficult enough at this time," he says.  "Blockchain will help with transparency and valuation."

For others, implementing blockchain into the media pipeline will help solve for one persistent vexing problem – ad fraud.  “Blockchain has many use cases from identity and risk management to fraud and decentralizing data," explains Alysia Borsa, Chief Marketing and Data Officer, Meredith.  "The low hanging fruit is fraud.  With disparate data coming in, how do we bring it all together in a centralized form? How do we create pilots that will be proof of concept for advertisers?”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

GABBCON Announces the Launch of Ad Ledger, a Blockchain Initiative

Blockchain was a top discussion point last year, but after the initial burst not much has appeared in the press. 

However, that doesn't mean that blockchain is any less important ... or its rollout dormant in any way.  In fact, according to the recent GABBCON conference, Dear Marketers: Help Me Help You, there has been decisive progress in rolling out the protocol in the media industry.  One major initiative is the creation of Ad Ledger, which is described as a "forum for collaboration" by Gabe Greenberg, Co-Founder GABBCON.  Over the span of two years, Ad Ledger has quietly ramped up. Christiana Cacciapuoti as Executive Director, just announced a set of  board members (including c-founding companies as Tegna, MadHIve and IBM), holding-company members and new rules of engagement.  The most important aspect of Ad Ledger at this time is to educate the industry and present the parameters of what blockchain can and can't do. 

The GABBCON announcement is the first salvo -- and now, the rest of 2019 is dedicated to taking the industry forward with members seeking eventual accreditation by the MRC.  Greenberg and his team are on the cutting edge of this blockchain roll out.  We met at the conference for an exclusive interview on the whys and wherefores of Ad Ledger, how it will impact the industry, next steps and obstacles to overcome.

GABBCON helped co-launch Ad Ledger and then transferred the GABBCON working group into it.  Becoming a founding partner was important, Greenberg explained, "because we saw an opportunity to bring buyers and sellers together in a way that the IAB and other groups weren't doing."  He noted that his company is participating to support the work that Ad Ledger is doing, including "breaking down the walled gardens and creating new open standards that help brands and agencies on one side and media sellers on the other side to extract the most value out of the market and pay as little for that as possible."  The way to this economic efficiency is by "cutting out the intermediaries and the folks that represent ad taxes," he added.

Greenberg has his eye on accreditation, which is necessary for scale and adoption.  "The team is in the early stages of working with the MRC," he indicated.  "It takes some time but the process is starting."

Looking to the future, Greenberg hopes that two years from now Ad Ledger will be at a point where the group "is chasing the scale of an IAB, develops a cryptoRTB standard that reaches a significant scale of the market, is not still in its infancy or nascent stage and that more and more brands are involved."

Currently, Hershey's and Bob Mills Furniture are involved and other brands were in attendance at the event for a look-see.  "But we need to get more brands that are demanding these solutions to come to the table and help form them," Greenberg asserted.  "More than anything Ad Ledger is a call to the industry to come together.  We don't need another consortium that's come and gone.  We need a group that is making real impact and making a difference."

For Wallace Kittredge, Senior Content Strategist for Bob Mills Furniture, a regional retailer of furniture, blockchain and participation in Ad Ledger will help his company explore more options, help justify their digital and offline budgets and close loops.  "Reporting is difficult enough at this time," he says.  "Blockchain will help with transparency and valuation."

For others, implementing blockchain into the media pipeline will help solve for one persistent vexing problem – ad fraud.  “Blockchain has many use cases from identity and risk management to fraud and decentralizing data," explains Alysia Borsa, Chief Marketing and Data Officer, Meredith.  "The low hanging fruit is fraud.  With disparate data coming in, how do we bring it all together in a centralized form? How do we create pilots that will be proof of concept for advertisers?”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

GABBCON’s 2018 Audience-Based Buying Conference: It’s All About Inventory

The third-annual Global Audience-Based Buying Conference and Consultancy (GABBCON) Audience-Based Buying Conference, was held recently in New York City. The 2018 conference offered attendees a wealth of information on how marketers and advertisers can adapt to the new environment of diverse datasets, dynamic real-time ad insertion, and the automation of local television.

Here is what’s looming on the horizon.

Identifying Diverse Audiences
In this age of ever-expanding consumer datasets, what is the best method to determine the most impactful consumer for a brand or network? Jason Wertheimer, vice president of media technology at Horizon Media, noted optimistically that our ability to pinpoint audiences is significantly better than it was years ago.

But Wertheimer says it’s hard to keep up: “Data is flying so fast. We need to make sense of it. Technology is advancing faster than we can keep up.” For some, data is not a panacea. According to Beth Mach, chief digital officer at Initiative, “consumers are finicky and change a lot. There is only so much we can attach to data.”


Read the full article on the Videa blog.

Tackling the Big Media Industry Issues at GABBCON 2018

Reaching the right consumer is getting much easier and at the same time, far more complicated. At the  GABBCON conference, issues like privacy and the right to be forgotten on the consumer side faced off with fraud, viewability and attribution challenges on the advertiser side. The playing field is not only changing, we may not be able to discern the best path to the goal posts. 

And in the spirit of the time, Gabe Greenberg, CEO and Co-Founder, GABBCON, made a concerted effort to enlist a diverse group of speakers to participate on panels. This resulted in an event that included new perspectives on media issues. Here are some takeaways:

Choosing a Consumer's Tattoo, Shadow or Twin

What is the best way to target a consumer? A panel moderated by Wendy Dunlap, Senior Vice President Digital Investment, Blue449 (previously Optimedia of Publicis Groupe), parsed out the various ways marketers can profile a consumer – whether a Twin, a Shadow or a Tattoo.  

Dunlap explained that a Twin is an individual’s digital representation formed by the aggregation and analysis of their behaviors, preferences and attitudes as expressed in the digital world.  A Shadow is an outline of a real-world identity but is prone to distortion and misrepresentation based on imprecise data signals in providing a complete picture. A Tattoo, as coined by Bethany Mach, Chief Digital Officer of Initiative, is a permanent marker of an individual’s digital activity that doesn’t go away but can continue to morph based on new information.  

“The replica of a real consumer is an amalgam of their various behaviors,” Dunlap noted. “A tattoo is a great metaphor,” she continued, stating that we should track “how it holds up over time and what we add to it” and “how it changes, “as more attributes are added to it or whether it fades away.” 

With Employees, Should it be a Right Brain or Left Brain Hire?

Throughout the day, panelists brought up the challenge of hiring the right people – those with that careful balance of right and left brain capabilities and experiences. And should new hires be from media or outside media? These are no small issues for the industry at a time when there is a need for both creative and analytical solutions and the knowledge of the past and the capabilities of the future.  

Mach stated, “I am looking for new types of people to work for me.  I want a data scientist or engineer.” However, filling media slots with left brain experts may be missing an important ingredient in discerning consumer motivations and behaviors. Shouldn’t we also be hiring anthropologists, Dunlap countered? “It’s good to have an analytical perspective but you also need a social science background,” she added.

Blockchain is Coming. Be Ready. Or Else.

There has been a lot of talk about how Blockchain will impact the Media industry but what exactly is Blockchain? Jonathan Steuer, Chief Research Officer, Omnicom Media Group, defined it, “as an ecosystem. It is a technology method that provides a secure chain of custody for any digital transaction, data, or personal attribute all the way through a system. Where it is where it came from and what aspect of it you can use.”

It was agreed that Blockchain should be embraced and not deferred. Natalie Monboit, Head of Futures at Starcom, warned, “It will hurt you if you are not involved.” She advised to start now by looking ahead and asking, “What is that big disruptive vision? What is the future state?  And then work backwards. You have to be in it in order for it not to hurt you.”

While some may feel that the future application of Blockchain is just another monstrous transformation to upend business as usual, there are those who look on the bright side. Monboit concluded, “Blockchain has potential to solve for fraud and clean up our industry. It unearths everything we understand about engaging consumers. It is a lot bigger than just solving for current issues in ad tech.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Using Blockchain to Disrupt Media

Just when you thought the media landscape was quieting down, a new non-profit research and development foundation called the AdLedger Consortium has been created to further disrupt the buy/sell model, this time by using blockchain. This consortium is charged with implementing global technical standards, protocols and solutions for digital media and blockchain. 

The group’s founding members consist of a range of companies from technology, advertising agencies, media sellers and data vendors who are pooling their expertise and efforts to, according to the press release, “bring transparency and data security to the ad tech supply chain through blockchain technology.” According to their press release, founding member companies include, Canoe, GroupM, Cadent, Meredith, IPG Mediabrands and Neustar, among others.

Why Apply Blockchain to Digital Media

At a recent Frankfurt Kurnit event, Gordon Platt, President, Gotham Media, explained that when it comes to media and advertising, "Blockchain technology will bring media licensing and distribution into the 21st Century, enabling creators to control access to their work and ensuring that they get paid for its use."

Eric John, Deputy Director, Video Center of Excellence at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) noted that in the areas of fraud and safety, “It takes automation to and entirely new level.” On the plus side, blockchain offers a failsafe, verifiable, immutable protocol to permanently link data for use in transactions and data tracking. Privacy compliance is part of this focus.

But caution is advised. “Putting a social network on the blockchain is harder than you think,” warned Benji Rogers, CEO and Co-Founder, Dot Blockchain Media. “If it links to extremist content, you can never take it down,” he explained. “You might siphon millions of dollars to the wrong person and can’t turn it off.”

Privacy Compliance Legislation

The concern about data privacy is being addressed through legislation by the EU called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) scheduled to go into effect in May 2018. Its implementation is a call to action for companies interested in creating and supporting a privacy compliant peer-to-peer decentralized network for media. Through the use of blockchain, companies can address a range of data issues from transparency to supply chain inefficiency to data security and portability to reconciliation and payments that comply with the new EU regulation.

According to Gabe Greenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of GABBCON, Global Audience Based Buying Conference and Consultancy, “Blockchain has the ability to help media by illuminating the current opacity in the supply chain and, by extension, eliminating fraud and moving economic value back to publishers and advertisers.” And, importantly, it offers a secure, privacy-compliant ability to transact that protects the user's private data. 

AdLedger Proof of Concepts

AdLedger is working on two different proofs of concept right now. The first is OpenGPDR, which will cryptographically store data on a data controller’s private blockchain, creating an audit trail. This will help companies manage the new privacy rights under the GDPR regulations of the Right to Access and the Right to be Forgotten.

The second proof of concept is Campaign Reconciliation which focuses on streamlining the campaign reconciliation process showing “what a campaign transacted from cradle to grave would look like on a blockchain,” stated Greenberg. Led by Amichai Lichtenstein, Director of Product Management at AppNexus, the project includes the creation of a contained blockchain network with a set number of players that combines disparate sources of immediate metrics based on measurement KPI’s tied to campaign delivery. Touted as a single source of truth, the ledger will ideally showcase blockchain’s ability to reduce the amount of campaign discrepancies and offer more transparency for buyers and sellers.

Challenges to Implementation

But there are still some challenges to overcome. The most frequently cited challenge, Greenberg noted, is speed. “The traditional ad tech landscape has high QPS (queries per second) demands that blockchain today would struggle to support, but we are confident that the technology will continue to evolve,” he stated, and added, “Saying that this will remain a challenge forever is assuming no innovation or iteration -- it's like saying a 5-year-old will never be tall enough to ride a roller coaster.” Even with this challenge, the expectation is that there will be increasing traction to embed blockchain in digital media throughout 2018.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Rewarding the Best in Advanced TV and Audience Buying. The ABBI Awards.

What makes an Advanced TV company great? According to Gabe Greenberg, CEO and Founder, GABBCON, it might be winning an ABBI Award. “The ABBI Awards (Audience Based Buying Innovation) awards are presented to companies who are leading innovation and success in advanced TV audience based buying,” noted Greenberg. 

This year his organization received over 100 entries and winners are selected by judges – not affiliated with GABBCON management.  This year the judges hailed from such companies as Nestle, L’Oréal, Hershey’s, Columbia Sportswear and agency leaders from OMD, Ocean Media, RPA and Assembly.

“We think the awards are quite important because there are no other awards series that recognize the very best in advanced TV and audience buying,” he stated and then added, “At a time when audience based buying is critical in the TV and Video market, we think it is critical to recognize and award those who are leading the market with success and innovation.”

I sat down with Greenberg and asked him the following questions:

Weisler: What makes a company the best in advanced TV and audience buying?

Greenberg: The judging for all our awards was done by brand and agency leaders so I cannot speak for them and what they were looking for. For GABBCON this is also a hard question to answer because it will vary from local to national from broadcaster to adtech provider. In my mind, what separates the wheat from the chaff is the sophistication of the data they apply, the level of automation they deliver and the inventory quality they offer – but that is my opinion, not that of the judges.  

Weisler: Have the criteria for the best changed over the past 2 years?

Greenberg: Yes, they certainly have. During last year’s awards, we judged on a combination of crowd sourced industry voting with GABBCON voting. This year 100% of all voting was done by executives from brands like Hershey’s, Nestlé, RPA and OMD with a total of 12 judges.

Weisler: Where do you see advanced advertising right now in the marketplace?     

Greenberg: Advanced advertising is at a very exciting tipping point where more and more companies are taking advantage of advanced data, technology and AI. TV itself is probably the best it has ever been and with the complement of Advanced advertising may finally begin to see dollars move back from digital to TV. This is an important area of focus for GABBCON events and clearly one hundreds of executives from big brands and agencies are all trying to leverage and figure out. As the ANA and others put digital under the microscope, advanced advertising lends a nice alternative in a medium that has proven to deliver and is fraud free and brand safe. Our consulting practice is seeing tremendous growth from brands, broadcasters, station groups and agencies who are trying to ride the wave of success and change.

Weisler: Where do you see it in 5 years?

Greenberg: In 5 years, I think we will no longer be calling it advanced. We will just be talking about TV and Video.

Weisler: How can advanced TV buying improve and who needs to be the change agent?

Greenberg: Just like brands and agencies lead the wave to digital, they need to lead again. Fortunately, many are. The move to advanced advertising has not been entirely because of its value and quality. Initially much of the interest and change was driven by necessity because of walled gardens who were improperly scoring their own homework, digital properties delivering non-human traffic and fraud or large players publishers delivering non-brand safe impressions.

The market is improving every day and there are any number of leaders paving the way with the intent to harmonize data and technology. We still have a lot of work to do together. However, some examples of progress, although early, are OpenAP, new addressable players like Spectrum Reach or expanded efforts from Comcast NBCUniversal and live solutions that allow for DAI from Hulu and Sony. Every month we have more scale and better solutions. It is a very exciting time for TV and Video.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Politics is the Biggest Challenge to Audience Based Buying. An Interview with GABBCON’s Gabe Greenberg.

Gabe Greenberg, CEO and co-founder of GABBCON (Global Audience Based Buying Conference and Consultancy), has an extensive media background working on both the client side (ADT Dealer and Microsoft) and the sales/marketing sides of the advertising marketplace (The Trade Desk, Delivery Agent, Autobytel, Bigfoot Interactive, Vibrant Media). 

But a standard corporate job was not in the cards for Greenberg. “I have had an entrepreneurial spirit since I was quite young, I get it from my father/family,” he confessed. “I have always wanted to help shape the market and be part of something bigger which led to Tina and I starting GABBCON. We saw a gap in the market that we seized and we have not looked back,” he added.  

Charlene Weisler: What are the challenges to audience based buying and selling? And how to overcome?

Gabe Greenberg: The biggest challenges today are political. Technology is no longer an issue. The politics within different sales organizations and the potential for some of them to try to setup additional walled gardens due to unwarranted fears about the threat to price is our biggest obstacle today. Our warning to these companies is to be careful for what you wish for. Don’t make the same mistakes digital did. We have an opportunity to really change the market with new channels like TV, Audio and DOOH – we need to be sure we do the right thing. I think we will (especially with Open AP and other endeavors that have popped up on the periphery.

Standardization is also quite important and GABBCON along with other groups are trying to lead the charge here.  

Weisler: Where do you see audience based buying and selling headed in the next three years? How much of the market will it command? 

Greenberg: As ATSC and BlockChain take hold, video and TV will be a more dominant force in audience buying. NBC betting $1Bn this year on audience is just a tip of the iceberg. I expect that as much as 25% of the TV/Video market will be planned, bought and optimized on audience using some level of sophisticated buying in the next three years. That is quite a significant number (it is larger than the entire programmatic pie today). New channels like audio and DOOH are also taking off and will accelerate the growth of audience based buying (truly cross device)

Weisler: Is Linear TV dead? 

Greenberg: HA No – nor will it be for some time (if ever). TV is the strongest it has ever been and with ATSC 3.0 I expect that TV will begin to take dollars back away from digital.

Weisler: How will the IoT impact audience based buying and selling if at all? 

Greenberg: I do not expect that it will have a negative impact – it will create new device ID’s and targeting opportunities that can be quite exciting.

Weisler: Tell me about the Abbi awards. When did it first launch? Why was it created? What do you hope to achieve from it? Who participated? 

Greenberg: The ABBI awards (Audience Based Buying Innovation Awards) launched last year for the first time – the second annual ABBI’s are open for entries now. We created them because we did not see enough celebration of innovation in the market, in spite of all the word count about the topic and therefore we set the ABBI’s in motion to celebrate all the great innovation in media and marketing as well as media and marketing leadership that is happening. 

The awards range from tech platform innovation (DSP, DMP, SSP of the year) to agency and media/marketing leadership innovation to campaign and creative innovation. We have some of the categories other awards might (Cross Device Campaign of the year, Best use of data, etc.) but we are all about celebrating innovation and audience based buying. For GABBCON it’s all about audience in everything we do. The award itself is even quite innovative in it’s design. Last year’s winners marveled in it’s size and innovative design.

Weisler: What is your recap of this year’s upfront? Who are the winners and the losers?

Greenberg: This year’s upfront has been a mixed year – but for the most part I think the winners are the content owners and producers.

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com