Morning Brew’s Barwick: Brands Need To Ask Tough Questions As Regulation Heats Up

Ryan Barwick is a senior reporter at Morning Brew, where he’s taken many deep dives into the world of digital advertising , regulation and privacy.

So he’s developed a very well-rounded, nuanced point of view on many of the issues facing this industry, from cookies going away to a slew of new state laws aimed at reigning in ad targeting. Therefore, I was excited to talk to him at length for a recent episode of my podcast Next in Media.

For sure, advertising “allows a lot of the internet to be free,” he told me. But when it comes to using the web to collect people’s location data, for example, “There are some tough questions are really worth asking. Brands are saying, ‘hey wait a minute, we need to ask ourselves those tough questions.'”

Because if they don’t, lawmakers surely will. And they’re not the tech luddites you might think they are. Barwick has been spending time watching Senate hearings and talking to lawmakers. “One thing I took from it, a lot of legislators actually have a more nuanced understanding of programmatic advertising,” he said.

But do brand understand what regulators are after? “I get a sense that everyone’s hair is on fire,” Barwick told me.  “They know they have these privacy forward talking points….but with all theses different laws, this is now on their plate when it wasn’t five years ago.”

Check out the full episode here.