Craig, our CRO, discusses growing advertiser demand for safer, contextually relevant and more private environments…
Friday 7th February - first published on Digiday
Below is the full response from our CRO, Craig Tuck:
Is the imminent death of third-party cookies in Chrome increasing demand for walled gardens that work for advertisers and publishers? If so why?
The ICO’s latest guidance - followed by moves such as Google’s - further confirms that the way data has been shared in RTB (the open market) is not fit for purpose, or ‘non compliant’. As data controllers of consumers’ personal data, advertisers and publishers will, and should rightly, play the principal roles in programmatic; working much closer together, with privacy by design at the heart of every conversation.
We’re experiencing greater demand for a safer, contextually relevant and a more private environment that creates even more value, through the first-party customer data of both the advertiser and the publisher, while also being accessible and auditable by other technologies. Not a position afforded to advertisers reliant on less ‘flexible’ walled gardens.
How does Ozone plan to take advantage of the demand? And what is it advertisers want from a proposition like Ozone's?
It’s important to remember that Ozone launched after the introduction of GDPR legislation and in anticipation of many of the changes we now see impacting the digital landscape - in many ways we were born ready.
Our ‘privacy by design’ approach is one that advertisers truly value; they know we are a brand-safe, compliant platform, while at the same time leading the way in providing a deeper understanding of context, at scale, in a world where third party data signals are harder to come by - and certainly to verify.
Advertisers also want to know their advertising is working for them, meaning a move beyond adtech metrics into real world effectiveness measures is inevitable. Obviously this is applicable across all channels, yet historically in digital there has been a greater tendency to buy media for one reason, yet measure with metrics designed for another.
How do you see these emerging (albeit smaller) walled gardens being pitched as the antithesis of those walled gardens from the major tech firms?
Across the Ozone platform, we see 99% of all UK adults every month, a figure higher than every platform out there. Whilst scale is incredibly important, we pitch ourselves on the uniqueness of our proposition - an unrivalled platform for reaching the UK’s largest pool of editorially-governed, premium publisher content - something very different from the long-tail of unregulated content. Importantly too, we are creating value for customers, through faster loading content and more relevant advertising deployed at the right frequency vs. bombardment - something we do by gaining user consent across multiple domains. A systematic and proprietary view of audience behaviour will always drive the best results.
In order to compete with the major tech firms, you need clear differentiation - if Google is known for search and Facebook for social, we want to be known as the platform for Attention at scale. The value for advertisers lies in our access to readers at ‘moments of influence’, in trusted environments, and in a way that is transparent and easy to access.
We also believe that with fewer cookies and less tracking data in RTB impressions, the influence of conversion metrics - where some of the other platforms excel - will be greatly reduced. We see this as a good thing as it will help focus digital expenditure in those areas that shift awareness, consideration and effectiveness measures.
Is there a role for agencies here if there's going to be more focus on advertisers and publishers working more closely together?
There is absolutely a role for agencies here and the best ones will always be those that bring the advertiser and media owner closer together to maximise opportunity, and deliver the best business outcomes.
All too often we hear agencies being publicly berated, but too rarely is there acknowledgement of the really good people who are doing their very best to untangle many of the complex, legacy issues of the agency model. At Ozone, we have only experienced agencies lean-in to our proposition; understanding the value of context, compliance and a private, more direct approach to programmatic. Many of these relationships have fuelled even deeper three-way collaborations between those agencies, advertisers and ourselves to find the best solutions for their brands.
