Technology

New Digital Media Industry Ad Exchange Promises Transparency

Digital Content Next, a trade group for online publishers, plans to launch an ad network under the B Corporation structure. The goal? Certified transparency.

TrustX is open for (transparent) business.

The brand-new advertising marketplace was just announced by digital-media trade group Digital Content Next, with the goal of ensuring more transparency to marketers that want to reach their customers via online ads.

“It was clear that to move the needle on trust in the market, we needed to get in the game in a more direct way,” DCN CEO Jason Kint said in a press release introducing the new platform.

According to the announcement, TrustX will guarantee marketers full transparency about the cost of campaign delivery and will deliver only advertisements seen by real consumers, not bots. TrustX also aims to reduce the use of ad blockers by improving the customer experience.

“The marketplace comes at a particularly important time when DCN membership recognizes a larger purpose to build a sustainable future for trusted advertising,” Kint said to The Drum.

The TrustX organization will launch as a B Corporation, a license businesses can obtain if they follow certain social responsibility standards. Because it will be a subsidiary of the nonprofit DCN, it won’t pursue profit as other B Corporations do.

DCN describes itself as “the only trade association exclusively dedicated to trusted, high-quality digital content brands,” which include ABC News, Conde Nast, ESPN, Hearst, NBCUniversal, News Corp, Vox Media, and the Washington Post. Twenty-seven DCN members have committed to the TrustX platform.

“TrustX offers tremendous scale—reaching about 100 percent of the U.S. internet population—with a diversity of premium inventory from both large and small publishers across all content verticals,” Kint said. “This is clearly an attractive platform for marketers, especially considering the higher brand lift they see on our members’ sites.”

“The digital supply chain needs a reset,” Tony Pace, chairman of the Association of National Advertisers, said in a press release. “TrustX is an important industry initiative to make sure those constituencies are fairly served. I applaud the premium publishers for taking this important step to simplify and rationalize the supply chain for their audiences and advertisers.”

The platform is expected to launch early next year.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Patrick deHahn

By Patrick deHahn

Patrick deHahn is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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