European Addressable Media Initiative (EAMI) forms Expert Advisory Group to support work in Europe

The European Addressable Media Initiative (EAMI), which aims to provide concrete recommendations to advertisers, agencies and media owners about identity resolution and addressability solutions in Europe, recently announced the formation of an Expert Advisory Group to support its work. The list of recommendations will be published later this year and presented at an industry summit.

Made up of senior executives from GroupM, Channel 4, ITV, Publitalia ’80, The Ozone Project, Choreograph, Total Media and other key players, the Expert Advisory Group will draw on its members’ decades of experience in the industry to help support “the growth and development of a responsible, privacy-first addressable media ecosystem across Europe.” (View the full list of members here.)

The decade of addressable media

The 2020s are set to be the decade of addressable media, as consumption continues to shift towards connected platforms, opening up new possibilities for audience targeting, measurement, attribution, and optimization – not just in digital, but in TV, audio, out-of-home, games and newer media formats and platforms.

Addressability can be considered the basis of the new advertising ecosystem, as privacy laws tighten in the wake of GDPR’s implementation nearly four years ago, and we approach the end of the third-party cookie era. Addressability encompasses a broad spectrum of solutions, from 1:1 targeting using new identity solutions to tailored messaging for different audience segments. These capabilities are the foundation of the new advertising ecosystem, facilitating the delivery of more relevant, people- and privacy-first marketing communications to attention-short consumers, helping media owners to future-proof their businesses.

However, new privacy and data protection regulations, anti-tracking safeguards, and the deprecation of established digital identifiers, are driving a proliferation of new advertising rules, frameworks, and offerings, leading to growing complexity and confusion for many ad buyers and sellers. Furthermore, solutions developed in one country may not work in the same way in other countries. Cross-media addressability adds an additional layer of complexity, with significant variations across different media.

The launch of EAMI

Members of EAMI, which launched in December 2021, include Amobee, Comscore, Finecast, LiveRamp, Lotame, Magnite, Neustar and PubMatic. EAMI was launched by The Project X Institute (PXI), a thought leadership and advisory collective focused on the international media, advertising, entertainment, technology, and sports industries.

The Expert Advisory Group will play an important role in supporting the Initiative, feeding in important insights, views and perspectives about the challenges and opportunities ahead across Europe’s largest advertising markets, based on years of experience and deep knowledge of addressable media and advertising.

During the coming months, the Initiative will begin publishing interviews and emerging findings from its research and analysis, featuring insights and inputs from the members of the Initiative and from the Expert Advisory Group.

Huge opportunities for brands

Rich Astley, Global Chief Product Officer at Finecast, said: “The addressable media landscape continues to change at pace and we are seeing huge demand in Europe. However, the development of a robust addressable media ecosystem is only possible through strong partnerships and investment in technology integrations. Brands are looking to embrace this connectivity, but the landscape is still complex and differs greatly by medium and market. Finecast supports the European Addressable Media Initiative as there are huge opportunities for brands to embrace addressable media if we collaborate. I look forward to working through some of the issues collectively with the rest of the Expert Advisory Group to come up with solutions to help create a robust addressable media ecosystem in Europe.”

Hugh Stevens, Head of Strategic Growth at LiveRamp, said: “LiveRamp believes the post-cookie ecosystem should be better than what it replaces and is committed to working across the industry to achieve this. To this end, we are creating a new, open ecosystem which provides a level playing field that is trusted, open and neutral – data must be interoperable in a trusted and verified, privacy-conscious manner. We look forward to working with the Expert Advisory Group to continue moving towards a more secure and interoperable advertising market.”

Bringing different stakeholders together

The Expert Advisory Group includes senior executives from leading advertisers, advertising agencies, media owners and advisory firms working across Europe including in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

Miles Pritchard, Managing Partner for Data & Tech Enablement at OMD EMEA, said: “We talk a lot about the industry coming together to find solutions to our collective challenges, but the European Addressable Media Initiative and its Expert Advisory Group are making a concerted effort to bring different stakeholders together to address the changing landscape in a collaborative way.”

“The Data industry needs to consolidate its processes, its business model resources and facilitate the entry of new companies to be considered a true industry. Addressability and responsibility will be the key to having an environment that prioritizes privacy and is a consolidated industry within digital. this initiative is the best way to start this arduous mission that we all have together,” said Salvatore Cospito, Co-Founder and Chief Digital Transformation Officer at DATMEAN.

Creating standards and improving technology

Simeon Duckworth, previously Global Head of Strategic Development for GroupM Data and Analytics and now Researcher into the Economics of Data Sharing at UCL, said: “I’m excited to be part of the European Addressable Media Initiative. The addressable ad market continues to develop rapidly. But our new regulatory environment is driving explicit, and often unfamiliar, trade-offs between targeting, privacy, competition and collaboration. A sustainable model that balances the needs of content owners, regulators and advertisers may need a new playbook.”

Simon Thomas, Global Director of Audiences Research and Media Investment Management at GroupM, said: “The emergence of the European Addressable Media Initiative is to be applauded, as advertisers, agencies, and media touchpoints explore the opportunities presented by advanced audience and geo-location addressability. Harnessing and improving the technology, creating standards, and developing formats is of benefit to us all. I’m delighted to be a part of the EAMI Expert Advisory Group, and look forward to contributing thought leadership and experience to this exciting new initiative.”

Jon Watts, Co-Director of the European Addressable Media Initiative, said: “We’re delighted to welcome this incredible group of industry executives and experts to our Expert Advisory Group for the Initiative,” said Jon Watts, Co-Project Director. “The Group has decades of experience, working at the highest levels of the advertising industry, and will play aninvaluable role informing our research and analysis. We’ll be expanding the group of Expert Advisors as the initiative progresses, providing insights from across the industry.”

Ian Maude, Co-Director of the Initiative, said: “The Expert Advisory Group will provide deep insights about the European addressable media landscape and the challenges and opportunities ahead for ad buyers and sellers. We very much look forward to collaborating with everyone in the Group over the next few months.”


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