Dive Brief:
- Interpublic and Omnicom are the most recent agency signees of the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) anti-piracy pledge joining WPP and Publicis and companies including Google and GoDaddy.
- TAG was formed last year as an industry organization dedicated to preventing ads from appearing on pirated or copyright infringing websites.
- Research from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) from last year found that digital piracy of video, live events, music, video games and text could reach around $2.4 billion per year.
Dive Insight:
About the pledge signees, TAG CEO Mike Zaneis told Adweek, "They know that their ads aren't going to show up in these pirate sites. They're not going to have these types of adjacencies to criminal activity and their ad dollars are not going into the pockets of criminals. So it's immeasurable increase in trust."
Last month TAG launched its “Certified Against Fraud” designed to fight ad fraud, another issue affecting the online advertising industry. At the time, Ted Dhanik, CEO of engage:BDR, told Marketing Dive, "The 'Certified Against Fraud' program is a huge step for our industry, which, up until this point, has lacked a centralized standard about how to combat the issue- leaving grey area for bad actors to profit from, and for opportunistic companies receiving secondhand benefits to hide behind.”
By taking a strong stand against piracy and ad fraud, TAG is one industry player working to combat some of the core issues that have prompted consumers to adopt ad block technology at increasing rates.
