We can't trust what we don't understand

Trust seems to be at an all time low in the digital advertising supply chain. 

In fact it’s got so untrustworthy, blockchain is being heralded as one final Hail Mary to save us from ourselves. Whether it is the brands being blamed for funding Terrorism or sexual exploitation, media agencies’ buying methods being brought into question, AdTech vendors’ business models or creative agencies pushing the production of video to maximise profit — it seems where ever you turn, someone’s motives are being called into question.

And when such large amounts of cash are at stake ($88bn spent in online advertising each year), trust is needed.

The AdTech ecosystem always seems to look up to financial markets as their more established big brother. So let’s use them to take you out of your media bubble. 

The filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by financial services firm Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, remains the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history — with Lehman holding over US$600,000,000,000 in assets. This sparked a financial crisis across the much of the world, resulting in government bank bail, both in the USA and the UK. 

Not being your industry, I would not expect to you know all the details, beyond what you may have watched in films like ‘The Big Short’. Many do still ask though, how a small savings bank called Northern Rock — with it’s head office in the North East of England — managed to get caught up in the same financial crisis that destroyed a New York based investment bank.

Since the financial crisis, banking has been the most hated and least trusted of all industries. Until recently.  

Whilst we have all been busy pointing the finger at other parts of the ecosystem — with the collapse of Cambridge Analytica and then the publicity of GDPR — consumers have been busy realising they have no idea what actually goes on in media, what we all actually do! 

And how can they trust what they don’t understand — after all, we’ve seen this before haven’t we?

So in preparation of presenting at the IAB’s seminar on trust, I had my team interview fifty members of public at random, around Covent Garden, on what they actually understand in media. But before sharing the answers with the audience, I asked what they thought the public had said:

So instead of continuing with the ‘who done it’, we need to start thinking about the market that is consuming our material.

If we want to put the trust back into the industry, we need to start with being transparent; and explaining to our consumers what we are doing, and why: 

Publishers: If you have not educated your readers on how they are paying for your content, then how can they ever value your product. A transaction needs a value exchange — if one side is not paying, or doesn’t know how they are paying, don’t expect them to see value in it.

Advertisers: If consumers don’t understand why they are seeing you ads; and just see them as a blocker, slowing down their experience — don’t expect to see any sort of valuable engagement. 

If we don’t hurry up and educate consumers on our purpose, and the value that we provide — it could be ground hog day for another crisis; but this time for the ad industry.