IAB Europe’s flagship event of the year, IAB Interact, will be held virtually next week. The event is spread over three days from Tuesday to Thursday 25-27.5. and speeches and panels are scheduled for afternoons. The event is sponsored by partners and is free for all attendees. More detailed timetable and registration can be found here: https://iabeurope.eu/interact/
On each of the three days, Interact offers 2.5 hours of views directly from the top of Europe. This year’s IAB Interact focuses on digital advertising and marketing trends and developments, privacy, and existing and new standards. By focusing on developing them together, we will ensure good conditions for future success. IAB Europe will also share digital media investments from 27 European countries in the challenging year 2020. So, for the first time, there is a comprehensive overview of how the pandemic shuffled the deck of cards in the market and what was dealt.
The pandemic was the most surprising, but not the only change that shook our market. The privacy development that has been raging for years culminated in the death announcement of third-party cookies and significant changes in the targeting and measurement of iOS in-app advertising.
Views on the future of digital advertising
Although recent history has been exceptional, it provides an interesting basis for predicting the future. Will the accelerated use of digital services and the growth of e-commerce continue the same post-pandemic? Who is the best positioned to provide the most effective solutions for targeting and measuring? How will our fascinating industry develop in the coming years? I look at the world myself mainly from the point of view of media and technology, so below are a couple of ideas for the future from this perspective:
There are many interesting approaches. The easiest and most certainly correct claims are that DOOH, audio, media-driven merchants, and services that collect a lot of logged-in users are among the successes. Smaller regional players will face challenges, and these will be tackled through alliances, with a particular focus on sales and data. Consolidation also continues through acquisitions, especially among the media, but also among technology players. The Nordic exchanges get at least one, but some advertising technology players, on their lists. I can't tell whether we should talk singular or plural. These were easy predictions based on strong signals.
I also believe that the media will take the control back from the technology players who have accumulated power over the years. This will be facilitated as publishers’ expertise grows and they have more and easier access to collaborative data and tools to evaluate different partners and optimize their performance. Sales technologies become easier to control and optimize. And most of all, the technologies used become pure business decisions instead of cumbersome and money-consuming technology projects.
And yet, the Nordic countries will become a stronger player in the adtech market. There are already several success stories in Finland and new bubbles are bubbling beneath the surface, both on the buy- and sell-side, without forgetting privacy and ID management.
Relevant Digital involved in enabling
Relevant Digital is one of IAB Interact's main sponsors and at the same time the first Finnish company to sponsor an almost annual event. Petri Kokkonen and Olli Järvilehto from Relevant Digital will also be present at the panel discussions.
Welcome to IAB Interact to listen to inspiring speeches, discussions and predictions about the future of the industry!
More detailed timetable and registration can be found here: https://iabeurope.eu/interact/