Alison Pepper wants the advertising industry to respect consumers’ privacy. She just doesn’t want a multitude of ways in which to execute that.
Europe ignited the new privacy era with its GDPR legislation, prompting California’s CCPA, deprecation of third-party cookies and other mobile identifiers and now a federal look at privacy policy.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, 4As EVP for government relations Alison Pepper says agencies are having to live with the new regulated environment – but they deserve a consistent approach.
No more self-regulation
“The advertising industry is really at an inflexion point when it comes to privacy right now,” she says.
Pepper thinks the last time such a moment hit advertising was around 2007 and 2008, when the industry got together and coalesced around self-regulatory principles for online behavioural advertising.
“I think we’re no longer in an environment where we can really truly rely on self-regulation to do what needs to happen to keep our industry thriving and vibrant,” she says.
‘Uniformity’ needed
So, more regulation is happening; most people accept that.
But Pepper is one of many advertising industry executives who are craving a consistent approach to that regulation, so that companies don’t have to operate in different ways for different states and countries.
She is speaking for the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Pepper’s words are a call on behalf of ad agencies for simplicity.
“We’re really going to have to regulate … at a national level so that we don’t see this bifurcation of different privacy regimes happen at the state level,” she says.
“Agencies have so many touchpoints into how they’re getting data and how they’re using data that I think agencies increasingly have a really strong interest in seeing one national standard. They really need uniformity.”
This video is part of the Global Forum on Responsible Media produced by Beet.TV, GroupM with the 4A’s. This track on data, identity and a transparent supply chain is sponsored by MediaMath. For more videos on this topic, visit this page.
