Guy Phillipson: lessons from the UK’s digital revolution [IAB Summit]

The UK is one of the biggest digital advertising markets in the world. Worth £4-billion in the first half of 2015, it accounts for the majority of adspend, having overtaken TV as far back as 2010.

That’s hugely significant, especially given how low digital advertising spend remains in a number of markets. In South Africa for instance, digital spend is growing (excluding Google and Facebook, it was worth more than R1.5-billion in 2015) but still only accounts for a small fraction the country’s total adspend.

One of the leading players in the UK’s digital marketing revolution is Guy Phillipson, who has been CEO of IAB UK since 2005.

During a Q&A session at the IAB Digital Summit in Johannesburg, Phillipson outlined some of the challenges and successes the UK body has experienced over the past few years, and what the local industry could potentially learn from them.

Speaking a common language

According to Phillipson, one of the biggest successes the IAB UK had was developing a universal research currency, thereby clearing the way for brands, advertisers, and publishers to speak a common language.

Getting there wasn’t easy though. Something that was supposed to be pushed through in a couple of years ended up taking closer to five. The trouble, he explained, wasn’t in arriving at it as a principle, but in getting everyone in the industry to agree to it.

The rise of programmatic

One of the other big things the IAB UK, alongside industry bodies and players around the world, is having to deal with is the rise of programmatic advertising.

While it’s something that many in the industry fear, it seems likely to become the dominant form of digital advertising in the very near future.

Phillipson believes that within the next few years, programmatic advertising will account for “more than 80%” of digital spend. “It’s just a more efficient trading machine,” he said.

Addressing the potential fears publishers have around programmatic, he says that in the UK it became so ubiquitous that “publishers just had to get involved”.

And in other markets, he points out, publishers have come together and set their own standards for what they want from programmatic.

“The other thing we’re seeing is, and I think France was the first country to do it,” he said, “is that the publishers got together and set their own standards for what they would and wouldn’t accept from programmatic.”

Of course, publishers aren’t the only ones who’ve taken issue with programmatic. A number of established digital agency players were also worried that it could blow the floor out of digital adspend.

According to Phillipson, the opposite can actually be true because agencies are able to deliver a much higher quality of audience to the brands they represent.

“It can enhance the price and the yield, based on where a person is and what they’re likely to want,” he said.

Digital leading the way with other industries

It’s having an effect on traditional media too.

Since 2014 for instance, Sky TV viewers have been fed targeted ads, based on a household’s profile and location. In theory, this gives the service to deliver more personalised, localised ads to viewers.

As Phillipson notes however, it doesn’t provide for anywhere near the same level of in-depth targeting as online and mobile marketing do.

“It’s adressable TV to a walled garden audience”, he said.

Digital upfronts

While acknowledging that each market is different, Phillipson believes that one IAB UK initiative that could be successfully imported to South Africa is Digital Upfronts. An idea borrowed from the North American TV industry, IAB UK describes Digital Upfronts as “a showcase of premium digital advertising opportunities from some of the UK’s leading content creators, media owners and tech companies”.

These gatherings, which take place throughout the year, are a chance for everyone in the industry to talk about how their respective offerings can be mutually beneficial in a space designed specifically for that.

If nothing else, it’ll help bring what can sometimes feel like disconnected parts of the industry together more than a handful of times a year.