The evolution of media channels, ad targeting and the role of ad tech have significantly reshaped the media marketplace, allowing advertisers to select inventory and direct their messaging with an incredible level of precision. These developments have long been hoped for and yet, now that they are here, there is much that advertisers don’t understand about one important bi-product of the ad tech revolution… the disposition of the data gleaned from their investment at all levels of the media investment cycle.
In our contract compliance auditing practice, it is not uncommon that we find contract language gaps relating to issues such as:
- Who owns the data?
- Where is the data stored?
- For how long?
- How secure is the data?
- Is the data kept separate from that of other advertisers?
- Is your data being used to aid other advertisers?
These are important questions that heretofore have yet to be addressed by many advertisers within their agency agreements. “Big data” represents a potential treasure trove of information that can drive marketing strategy for advertisers by leveraging the insights gleaned from media transactional and customer behavioral data. That is, if and only if they are in receipt of the layers of data available to them and that they have the rights to use the data.
Rights to use their data? As odd as that may seem, data ownership is not automatically ceded to an advertiser. In spite of the fact that without an advertiser’s investment there would be no media buy and no corresponding data stream. Yet, many within the media chain have taken aggressive actions to claim that data as their own. Ad agencies, trading desks, publishers, demand side platforms (DSPs) and third party ad servers to name some of the entities that desire to own, or at a minimum, have unrestricted access to that data.
This jockeying for data ownership and access carries additional risks for advertisers in and around the topic of data privacy and security. Particularly as it relates to first-party data that may be utilized in the planning and placement of programmatic digital and addressable TV buys. Why? Because the unregulated, unsupervised use of an advertiser’s first-party data could be in violation of their users’ privacy rights.
Ownership and access rights to third-party data, which is often accessed on the advertiser’s behalf by its agency and or ad tech providers such as data management platform (DMP) and ad platform providers are generally clear and typically spelled out in licensing agreements between the various stakeholders. Then there is second-party data, which can best be described as information that users didn’t give you directly but was acquired through an advertiser’s relationship with another entity, such as an SEO platform or that was acquired via feedback from a behaviorally targeted digital display ad campaign. Advertisers must ensure that the use of and or sharing of second-party data is done in a privacy compliant manner to safeguard the interests of the user.
Complicated. Yes, and often little understood by those crafting client/agency agreements. It would certainly be appropriate for advertisers to revisit their agency agreements, with the goal of ensuring that their data ownership rights, privacy considerations and third-party access rights are clear and consistent in this emerging area. It is important to note that industry best practice templated language is still evolving and should not be relied on as an advertiser’s sole source for securing ownership/access rights and protections for agency agreements.
When it comes to advertiser data ownership, we share the beliefs of American businessman and politician Jim Oberweis, who stated:
“I am a strong believer that intellectual property rights need to be protected.”
Want to learn more about evolving your organization’s agency contract language? Contact Cliff Campeau, Principal at AARM | Advertising Audit & Risk Management at ccampeau@aarmusa.com.