The IAB network around Europe acts as the leader of the industry and the focus for debate. It has been positioned in most markets as being where client marketers go at the start and Where agencies come back for advice. The IAB is Where media owners come for training and where the whole industry goes for support.

Strategy Council agreed that the IAB should market the medium and reveal its potential, unmasking complexity and opening up its access. In its early years this means IAB needs to protect the advertising environment and tackle head-on the challenges of embryonic standards and currencies. The IAB acts to galvanise the diverse market segments to speak with a single voice and share its messages with hundreds of companies.

Together we are working to change the shape of marketing leading the trend towards ‘media-neutral’ planning which will invariably benefit online as it remains the most underutilised of media channels.

The IABs are very similar around Europe, with some further developed then others due to market size and internet penetration. At European level, and typically at national level, the IAB drives growth through the management of five programmes of activity to grow the market.

Five programmes to accelerate the market
· Marketing of interactive media to promote online advertising
· Developing powerful standards to raise profitability by tackling barriers and reducing costs
· Producing powerful research
· Proving the effectiveness and power of online
· Educating the markets about the medium
· Helping to persuade marketers and show them how to use new media
· Protecting the freedom to advertise with effective public affairs and external representation

IAB Europe’s partner Forrester research released new analysis of the European market reporting record growth in advertising spend and the continued growth in internet audiences. “We are now using the IAB data for our baseline in all main markets”, explained Rebecca Jennings, senior analyst from Forrester research. For top-line analysis of the market by Forrester email the IAB.

In the standards workshop on Rich Media, IAB Europe agreed join the IAB US in the development of a unified set of global rich media standards. Jeff Bernstein from MSN US presented a behind-the-scenes view of the research that has helped them understand the issues around Rich Media. “Just looking at groups of viewers when they are using the internet gives you a real sense of the issues”, explained Bernstein as he played through clips of the internet users being exposed to rich media and pop-up formats.

When the group came to talk about audience measurement systems Adam Phillips from ESOMAR explained the GOAM project backed by the IAB through our US team. Strategy Council agreed that there is a clear need to share the understanding of audience measurement across the different European markets. As a result IAB Europe will be enhancing its weight behind the GOAM project and sharing the experience of AudiWeb in Italy, AGOF in Germany and the measurement systems development in both France and the UK.

Opening the debate on audience measurement metrics within the server-side census based arena Richard Foan from IFABC explained that “Across 37 ABCs there has been a globally agreed set of definitions. IABs have been involved in these developments and they are now in place in most countries.” The role of auditing remains key in online and there is a detailed analysis from IAB UK on the definitions and the technical explanations behind the metrics.