IAB Australia’s Executive Technology Council (ETC) chair, Adele Wieser, predicts 2024 will be a “pivotal” year for the industry as it prepares for life without third-party cookies.
Wieser, the regional MD APAC at Index Exchange, predicts the industry will undergo another year of change – most significantly around the change in data as the cookie departs.
“One of the fundamental changes in our industry, the third-party cookie deprecation that is slated to start moving next year. It’s just one of those pivotal moments for our industry,” says Wieser.
“There is a very large portion of the market that is still leveraging Chrome environments, and as a third-party cookies start to go away, we’re going to see a fairly sizable change towards how addressability starts to look for media buyers.”
However, it’s not just the cookie departure that will reshape the market. Wieser predicts the ongoing battle for streaming audiences will only intensify as Paramount+ and Disney+ launch advertising tiers, along with Netflix’s announcement this week of increased ad formats. (link here)
“There’s an incredible surge in growth around streaming TV environments. We’re not only seeing our local partners growing their supply footprint and their user engagement, but you’ve got this diversification of new entrants coming in and offerings coming to market as well.”
“Where we’ve seen the market grow very, very, very rapidly into the streaming TV space, I believe we’re going to continue to see that transpire over the next year, as well.”
Wieser stepped into the role in March this year, replacing Angus Keene, who stepped up to the IAB Australia board as the ETC representative. Working alongside co-chair Jonas Jaanimagi (Tech Lead, IAB Australia), the council has been focused on the ACCC Transparency review, the IAB Mentorship program, and the annual Industry Talent Report.
“A lot of the focus continues to be around moving the market forward from a standards and transparency perspective. We’ll also continue to lean and support very heavily the regulatory affairs, discussions that are happening with the ACCC and the Attorney General’s department, etc. The career development and community engagement will continue from the mentorship perspective.
“We’re doing really well, from the IAB perspective in general, in terms of advocating for the needs of the industry,” said Wieser.
“The work that we do day in and day out with the ETC is around ensuring that we can inform, educate, and advocate for our industry as these key decisions are being made.
“Many companies have the ability to feed into these processes individually. But also, we’re providing the voice of the larger industry through the IAB – and the ETC is that technological centre of excellence in a way for those discussions.”