The major internet platforms Google and Facebook have not been able to offer a lot of things that users of these platforms would have liked. For instance, Google’s video platform, YouTube, hasn’t really been able to provide brand safety while Facebook is still in damage control mode after it made a mess of its measurement methods last year.
This is where TrustX, a digital advertising marketplace or programmatic platform, steps in with a promise of total viewability and transparency on what’s being bought and sold, complete with proper reporting and billing. However, TrustX is yet to take off or ride a wave of customer confidence for what it is offering.
Digital Content Next (DCN), the only trade association dedicated to trusted, high-quality digital content brands, created TrustX as a cooperative digital advertising marketplace, designed to address the industry’s trust, transparency and accountability challenges. This unique marketplace will function as a public benefit corporation (B Corp) whose main objective is to create a sustainable environment for trustworthy advertising. Companies that founded TrustX include DCN members like CBS Interactive, Condé Nast, ESPN, Hearst and News Corp among 33 other publishers.
Billions of marketer dollars are lost to unethical publishing practices and digital ad fraud each year. As a result, ad blocking among a growing number of consumers have increased even as lack of transparency in the advertising supply chain along with poor user experience motivated DCN to launch TrustX with the stated goal of winning the trust marketers, consumers and publishers with a high level of transparency. Troy Young, president, Hearst Magazines Digital Media, said there “is huge demand for this type of programmatic experience.” Hearst Digital is one of the five TrustX founders, which also include Conde Nast, CBSi, News Corp and ESPN.