The 5th annual “Business of Digital: Report on Data Conference” was a fitting highpoint for IAB Canada to conclude 2018. The proceedings kicked-off with the launch of the amazing 2018 CMUST Total Canada Report (Canadian Media Usage Trends) by Rob Young, Sr. VP Media Science for leading media agency PHD.
Mapping-out continued audience expansion of the Internet and estimating still-unmeasured contributions by multiple devices & content genres powering this wave is a unique contribution of the report, which forecasted high future adoption of ecommerce, virtual assistant-driven smart speakers and smart TV’s. Video is the crucial Internet audience magnet whose revenue stream continues to be staggeringly underdeveloped in Canada. Rob also demonstrated that ad effectiveness does not depend on screen size – the future is ADnostic”.
Andrew Grenville, Chief Research Officer of global insights firm Maru/Matchbox did the perfect segue, demonstrating how long-established survey designs are being disrupted as younger consumers with ubiquitous mobile devices and app preferences, migrate from keyboarding to spoken word interaction on the internet – the future is device and app-nostic.
Dave Mallon, who leads Integral Ad science in Canada emphasized that brand safety – specifically “suitable content” – had overtaken viewability as the main concern of marketers and their digital buyers but that the industry must begin to discuss fraud more openly in this country.
Cluep’s Stacey McInnes, Chief Operating Officer, unveiled new insights about how certain visual images people share on social platforms can outperform their text-based statements as targeting tools for marketers.
The afternoon concluded with an outstanding panel discussion – by the Globe and Mail’s Andrew Saunders, Rogers’ Jennifer Chan, Pelmorex’s Darren Bulakowski and PHD’s Matt Devlin – on the continuing unique strengths of Canada’s premium publishers because of their unmatched audience relationships – in an era of greater privacy concerns and gradually improving open auction media quality.
Stay tuned for exciting developments in 2019 as IAB Canada continues its efforts to support premium publishers.