Publicis updates evaluation process for ad tech, data providers
Publicis Groupe’s media agency arm, Publicis Media is updating its evaluation process for tech and data providers, including demand- and supply-side platforms and data management tools.
Shelley Pinsonneault who oversees Publicis Media’s global technology team that conducts the Verified audits said: “Currently, there is no marketplace standard in terms of ethically evaluating data and algorithms. The ten-year-old data and tech assessment process is intended to help clients figure out what approaches are the right fit, rather than rating or labeling tech suppliers as doing something right or wrong. Each brand has a different threshold for how they approach data and use information to make decisions.”
Recently, as the global concern for data privacy spirals, agencies and their clients have become more cognizant of where and how they source their data and tech. Publicis Media is also incorporating new ways to assess whether those companies’ systems perpetuate audience segmentation stereotypes or unfairly deprioritize ad inventory supplied by minority publishers.
Jennifer Garcia, svp of Publicis’ multicultural practice group, Cultural Quotient explained that Publicis Media’s aim is to get answers about how ad systems are designed in order to understand whether their data flows or automated rules and decision processes could affect people in certain cultural groups in a negative way or lead to discrimination against media that speaks to niche groups.
To achieve this, Publicis Media is adding a new set of 30 to 40 questions to its request-for-information process that currently features about 1,200 questions. Adding new parameters to the process is meant to help clients evaluate potential tech and data vendors by getting them to supply more information on topics including audience modeling and methodology and taxonomy. The process also aims to convince tech firms to provide access to the algorithmic systems used to make decisions such as audience targeting and inventory pricing.
Garcia noted: “Depending on what kind of relationship exists among certain publishers and the DSP, this may or may not play into the bias of what a DSP renders preferential among publishers. And certain minority groups and endemic publishers may be at a disadvantage, which also plays a role in the vicious cycle of not having enough data or insights to help inform future multicultural campaigns for clients who are genuinely vested in the segment.”
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