Greece launches consumer awareness campaign to promote AdChoices Icon
Brussels, 24 July 2014: – On 23 July, IAB Greece launched an ad campaign in partnership with the EDAA to educate and empower consumers about targeted online advertising. The campaign is designed to drive consumer awareness, provide information and enable consumer choice.
IAB Greece and the Greek Advertising Self-regulation Council (SEE), in cooperation with the EDAA, who were responsible for the development and funding, are launching a campaign designed to increase consumer awareness, understanding and empowerment regarding online “interest-based advertising” otherwise known as “Online Behavioural Advertising”.
The ad campaign, designed in partnership with Mediacom’s Beyond Advertising division, features various creative concepts including a zip, which opens to reveal the blue triangular ‘AdChoices’ icon that has accompanied behavioural ads in Greece and across the EU for over a year.
On clicking, users will be taken to a landing page where consumers may also watch a video, which provides a user-friendly description of ‘interest-based advertising’. Subsequently, users can also click through to a broader website http://www.youronlinechoices.com/gr/ where, in simple and user-friendly language, they will be informed of their choices regarding OBA targeting, the advantages of OBA, the ways online advertising supports the sites and services they use, and how they can safeguard their privacy.
In addition, the Greek Advertising Self-regulation Council (SEE), acting within its mandate to uphold Advertising Codes and responsible B2C advertising, has developed an online form to collect and handle consumer complaints regarding OBA practices.
The educational campaign is part of a wider Pan-European self-regulatory programme on OBA. The campaign has been designed by one of the world’s largest agencies called Mediacom, based upon a concept developed by a team of students at KH Leuven, Belgium, in a competition run by EACA (European Association of Communication Agencies).
This will be the first time that the campaign is run in a Southern European country. The campaign launched on the 23rd of July and will appear for six weeks on the majority of the publisher-members’ sites of IAB Greece. It has already been rolled out in the UK, Germany and Ireland, with more European markets to follow within 2014.
Oliver Gray, Director General of the EDAA commented, “we are thrilled that Greece now formally launches the self-regulatory system for OBA and will become the first Southern European country to run the consumer awareness campaign”.
Haris Rougas, General Manager of IAB Greece said, “This campaign is one more important step in consumer acceptance of online advertising. We wish to thank our members for supporting this initiative”.
Eleni Donta, General Manager of SEE added: “By offering the tools and the infrastructure, SEE is ready to contribute in the self-regulation of OBA practices, an important endeavour that aims to safeguard the credibility of advertising and to protect the consumer. The market proves once more its trustworthiness through this set of voluntary rules for OBA, this ‘new’ advertising practice.”
ENDS
MEDIA CONTACT
For more information, please contact: info@edaa.eu
T: +32 (0)2 513 7806
ABOUT EDAA
The European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels and is responsible for enacting key aspects of the self-regulatory initiative for Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) across Europe. EDAA principally acts as the central licensing body for the OBA Icon and provides technical means for consumers to exercise transparency and control over OBA through the youronlinechoices.eu online consumer choice platform. EDAA is governed by EU-level organisations which make up the value chain of OBA within Europe and acts to ensure European consistency in approach.
More information can be found at www.edaa.eu.
ABOUT OBA
Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA), often referred to as interest-based advertising, is the practice of delivering relevant advertising to internet users based upon their inferred interests from previous browsing behaviour over time and across multiple web domains.
OBA EDUCATION ACROSS EUROPE
Primarily, the education campaign will drive awareness of the OBA icon, licensed by the EDAA and placed on online ads, to ensure consumers associate it with meaningful transparency, choice and control over online behavioural advertising.
The OBA icon is a means for consumers to identify where OBA is being practiced in a clear and contextual manner. The icon links consumers to a pan-European consumer choice platform at www.youronlinechoices.eu, which aims to inform and provide choice and control. The website has been revamped alongside the launch of the campaign.
Through the Programme, consumers will better understand online advertising, as well as the means that are available to them if they wish to file complaints. Credible consumer complaint handling mechanisms in each national market will be handled by well-established and recognised national advertising self-regulatory organisations (SROs).
The “Unzipped” campaign has been designed by Mediacom Beyond Advertising and was based around a concept initially developed by a team of students from KH Leuven in Belgium (finalists in the 2012 Ad Venture student competition run by the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA)).
ABOUT THE EUROPEAN PRINCIPLES FOR ONLINE BEHAVIOURAL ADVERTISING (OBA)
The Self Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising have been developed through a cross-industry effort at European level, with EASA’s (European Advertising Standards Alliance) Best Practice Recommendation on OBA building on the IAB Europe (Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe) OBA Framework.
An essential role regarding compliance with these Principles is played by the national Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs) and IABs. Companies should be aware of the national SROs where they operate. More information, including contact details of SROs can be found on EASA’s website: www.easa-alliance.org.
