IAB Tech Lab, Project Rearc, and the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media

Leading trade associations and companies representing every sector of the global advertising industry, including IAB and IAB Tech Lab, have joined together to launch the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media. The partnership is similarly focused on the future of addressability for our industry, and it will build on relevant work by all of you already involved in Project Rearc.

As we’ve communicated from the start of Project Rearc, our industry needs all stakeholder groups involved in the critical business, policy, and technology conversations that drive the standards-setting process. The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media will support this need by bringing together many influential organizations, most notably top-tier buy-side leaders currently under-represented in Project Rearc, to work towards shared industry objectives. It includes industry associations — 4A’s, Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Interactive Advertising Bureau, IAB Tech Lab, Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), and World Federation of Advertisers–and top member companies–Ford, General Motors, IBM, IPG, NBCUniversal, Procter & Gamble, Publicis Media, Unilever, and others.

Given our global focus and experience setting technical standards, IAB Tech Lab will be leading the technical standards working group for the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media, which will build on the months of work that has been done by its ongoing Project Rearc to date. Project Rearc will support those efforts and remain focused on convening our industry’s product/engineering leaders towards the development of open technical standards and guidelines for privacy-preserving addressability, with improved industry accountability. Working with companies across our industry, we can define proposals and solutions that reflect business use case input and policy input from the partnership and other contributors globally.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are answers to a number of questions we anticipate from those involved in Project Rearc:

1. How is the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media related to Project Rearc?

In short: Project Rearc will serve as the technical foundation for the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media, taking business and policy guidance from the partnership participants (to inform technical standards efforts), while continuing to engage with other stakeholders globally.

More details: Project Rearc was launched in Q1 2020 to spur collaboration to develop privacy-centric solutions supporting addressability in advertising, given changes to third-party cookies and other identifiers. The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media is similarly focused on the future of addressability for our industry, and will build on relevant work by the hundreds of people globally who have already been involved in Project Rearc.

Our industry needs all stakeholder groups involved in the critical business, policy, and technology conversations that drive the standards-setting process. The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media will support this need by bringing together many influential organizations working towards shared industry objectives. It includes industry associations — 4A’s, Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Interactive Advertising Bureau, IAB Tech Lab, Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), and World Federation of Advertisers–and top member companies–Ford, General Motors, IBM, IPG, NBCUniversal, Procter & Gamble, Publicis Media, Unilever, and others.

Project Rearc will continue, led by Tech Lab and focused on the technical standard-setting aspects of addressability solutions that ensure a healthy and sustainable balance of privacy and personalization. Project Rearc will take business and policy input and guidance from the partnership and others globally.

2. Why launch a new initiative?

The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media will bring together some of the most influential organizations in advertising, most notably convening top-tier buy-side leaders which have been under-represented in Project Rearc to date. Numerous industry trade organizations have already been bringing together their members to discuss the removal of identifiers and addressability. Those groups span different regions and stakeholder groups, some publisher-led and some marketer-led. Tech Lab will lead the technical standards efforts, based on the months of work from Project Rearc, so it can facilitate alignment and ensure the industry has a clear path forward, with open standards that meet all stakeholder needs.

3. How will the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media be organized? Can you tell us anything about its expected work – process, deliverables, timelines, etc.?

The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media will assemble key stakeholders from its industry participants within working groups that focus on business practices, policy and legal considerations, technical standards, and industry communications and education. Tech Lab will lead the technical standards efforts, incorporating the participants from and past work of the Rearc Addressability and Rearc Accountability working groups.

4. How do I get involved in the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media, and into the governing group?

To learn more about the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media and consider your participation in the new business, policy, and communications/education working groups, please go www.ResponsibleAddressableMedia.com.

5. If I’m already involved in Project Rearc, should I participate in the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media too? Or instead of Project Rearc?

That depends on your involvement with Project Rearc. By design, the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media represents the interests of all key stakeholders – publishers, advertisers, agencies, and ad tech platforms, and the consumers they collectively reach. Project Rearc and the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media will be inter-connected, feeding to and from each other.

If your product/engineering leaders are already involved in Tech Lab’s member-only technical working groups (Addressability and Accountability), your company is represented in the partnership through Tech Lab.
If you’re not involved at the technical level and want to be, please consider joining Tech Lab and getting involved or getting your tech team working with us.
If you’re a business, policy, or other stakeholder and are involved with Project Rearc through the Project Rearc Task Force (which includes non-members of Tech Lab) or via your local IAB working group, it could make sense to join the new Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media working groups. Please see #5 or reach out to your local IAB for more information.

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