Press Release: Radio Accountability Initiative Announced at RAB Conference | About the ANA | ANA
Log in Search

Press Release: Radio Accountability Initiative Announced at RAB Conference

Radio Accountability Initiative Announced at RAB Conference
Initiative to Address Accountability/Distribution Platforms

Orlando, Fla., March 18, 2009 ... Ad-ID today announced the "Radio Accountability Initiative," which was endorsed by the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) at its RAB `09 conference. Harold S. Geller, senior vice president, cross-industry workflow, 4A's, and managing director, Ad-ID LLC, announced the initiative during a panel discussion entitled "Increasing Cash Flow and Decreasing Makegoods Through Digital Commercial Workflow." The Initiative will address accountability and distribution platforms that ensure the right commercials get on the right stations.

In endorsing the Initiative, Jeff Haley, president-CEO, RAB, said "As radio aims to grow its share of ad dollars, proof of performance, improved commercial workflow and consumer interactivity are increasingly important at the station level. It is beneficial to make radio commercials as interactive as the purchase-enabled songs to which they are attached."

"Accountability in radio revolves around identification. If you can consistently identify a spot, the advertiser it's associated with, and centrally access other necessary information, you create an environment where accountability and transparency are core capabilities," added Harold S. Geller, managing director, Ad-ID LLC. "Each of the founding participants in this initiative plays a key role in radio workflow; together they can demonstrate the accountability of radio."

Initial initiative participants include: Allen Hartle, founder/CEO, Jump2Go; Dale Graham, president / CEO, ClearStreaming Inc.; Harold S. Geller, managing director, Ad-ID LLC; Joe Rivera, vp/director of operations, FirstSpin Inc.; Rick Rowland, president, PowerLink Software.

Additional vendors and station groups will join as this initiative launches. There will be no restrictions to participation other than supporting Ad-ID. If advertisers choose to code ads outside of Ad-ID, a station's own policy will govern how that ad is treated.

"The founding participants of the Radio Accountability Initiative can make radio more accountable with limited disruption to existing workflow," added Geller. "Obviously as more vendors come on board, and adopt Ad-ID and XMP, more capabilities will emerge."

About the Founding Partners

Ad-ID is the only advertising asset coding system supported and authorized by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) across all media. It is guaranteed to be globally unique and has more than 70 metadata fields, (including: advertiser, product, brand, ad title, medium, agency, and length / size). Ad-ID is a flexible metadata model that can integrate requirements of any media, and provides Web services that enable the easy retrieval of data by authorized users. There are currently over 700 advertisers, including 78 of the top 100 in the United States, signed up for Ad-ID. For this initiative, Ad-ID becomes the foundation of the digital workflow.

Adobe's Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. With XMP, desktop applications and back-end automation systems gain a common method for capturing, sharing and leveraging this valuable metadata, thereby opening the door for more efficient job processing, workflow automation and rights management. In this initiative, XMP will be implemented to take the guesswork out of ad identification. Adobe has been approached to endorse this initiative.

FirstSpin's radio distribution platform ensures that commercial spots make it to the radio station, in time for air and with minimal manual intervention. Integration to Ad-ID's central database of information about ads reduces a step of rekeying, and ensures that vendors further down the workflow will have the necessary data. FirstSpin plans to use XMP to embed the Ad-ID in the file, which will further automate station commercial operations.

Jump2Go is designed to make radio commercials as interactive as the purchase-enabled songs to which they're attached, using the RDS layer of analog broadcast. Jump2Go will use Ad-ID to manage the identification of the ad; Jump2Go will also maintain a database of text that is associated with the Ad-ID based on the available output devices.

PowerLink Software's "Proof of Play" demonstrates the accountability of radio with definitive proof that commercials aired correctly. It can monitor ads before, during and after airplay via the Web. Combine Posting results and late copy change requests to the same screen and you have a one-stop shop for Ad buyers to be serviced with the latest technology! Power-Link's integration with Ad-ID, enables it to use standardized data to aggregate across stations and markets in real time.

About The Radio Advertising Bureau

The Radio Advertising Bureau serves more than 6,000 member radio stations in the U.S. and over 1,000 member networks, representative firms, broadcast vendors, and international organizations. RAB leads and participates in educational, research, sales, and advocacy programs that promote and advance radio as a primary advertising medium.

About the 4A's

The 4A's is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. The 1,196 member agency offices it serves in the United States employ 65,000 people, offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry's spokesman with government, media, and the public sector. For more information visit our Web site at http://www.aaaa.org/.

About the ANA

The mission of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) is to drive growth for marketing professionals, brands and businesses, the industry, and humanity. The ANA serves the marketing needs of 20,000 brands by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed by the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of U.S. and international companies, including client-side marketers, nonprofits, fundraisers, and marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). The ANA creates Marketing Growth Champions by serving, educating, and advocating for more than 50,000 industry members that collectively invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.