IAB Australia has joined the international group ‘Coalition for Better Ads’ as an affiliate member, continuing its push towards supporting Australian marketers and advertisers to build brands online.  

Launched in Germany last October, The Coalition for Better Ads is made up of leading international trade associations, publishers and agency groups involved in online media, as well as consumer brands, including Procter & Gamble and Unilever, who have all joined forces to improve consumers’ experience with online advertising.

The Coalition today released its initial Better Ads Standards for North America and Europe for desktop and mobile web.  It also announced plans to conduct research in Australia and then release local guidelines for marketers, agencies and publishers.  

The initial Better Ads Standards for North America and Europe are based on comprehensive research in which consumers comparatively ranked different ad experiences presented to them while they read online articles. More than 25,000 consumers rated 104 ad experiences for desktop web and mobile web.

“We are continuing to strongly drive every available option to help simplify and improve the online advertising experience for consumers and to improve the advertising value for brands,” said Vijay Solanki, IAB Australia CEO. “Collaboration is critical to achieving this goal and so working with other trade associations locally and internationally, as well as leading brands and publishers, will continue to underpin our approach.” 

Keith Weed, CMO for Unilever in he UK commented overnight on the global standards, saying: “As an industry we have a responsibility to find better ways of making great advertising and content that really engages people. It’s in everyone’s interest. Better advertising leads to a better experience for the viewer and more effective advertising for brand. The work of the Coalition to identify consumer preferences around ad formats will be a highly useful and insightful tool for the brand builders, advertisers and advertising agencies who are working to improve the quality of advertising for the viewer while driving effectiveness and efficiencies for the brand.”

During the Coalition’s research, consumers were asked to read articles on simulated high quality content pages, and then to rate comparatively the different ad experiences they received. These consumer preference ratings, as correlated with increased consumer propensity to use ad blockers, identified the types of desktop and mobile ad experiences that fell beneath the initial Better Ads Standards.