If advertising viewability is, as many folks say these days, “table stakes”, where does that leave one of the original digital ad verification vendors?

Integral Ad Science’s (IAS) new CEO says she is focused on differentiation, on Internet TV and on big platforms.

“Many marketers are asking IAS, ‘Hey, get in the OTT game’, says Lisa Utzschneider, who was Yahoo’s chief revenue officer until its acquisition by Verizon, in this video interview with Beet.TV. We’re currently in alpha right now with a major wireless carrier and six broadcasters.”

The traditional world of TV never suffered from concerns over the whether TV ads were truly seen. But arguably that was because analog TV had poor means to even measure viewership at all.

So, why exactly does Utzschneider think over-the-top internet TV needs ad verification?

“There are over a hundred million households in the US alone that’s viewing content via OTT,” she says. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done both in terms of putting together the standards on how we will verify.”

But, for IAS, it’s not all about OTT. Utzschneider suggests internet video remains a focus. She suggests there is a big opportunity in providing Google and Facebook the third-party verification they need to allay their own advertisers’ concerns about what is really going on under the hood.

“With Google, we’re deeply integrated,” she adds. “We’re working on a joint product roadmap and showing that we’re properly resourced. Particularly with YouTube and how much marketers invest in running ads in YouTube, they want to know that there is an independent third-party verification company verifying that the ads that they’re running is running next to brand-safe content.

“If we detect high-risk content is running, we have a feedback loop back to YouTube to alert them and let them know. And then YouTube can make the decision whether or not they want to demonetize that ad and not run it.”

This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled “The Road to Cannes.”  The series is sponsored by 4INFO. Please visit this page for additional segments. 

By Robert Andrews on    @robertandrews