Who Is the Internet Advertising Bureau & What’s The Buzz All About?

Stating its mission of being “dedicated to the growth of the Interactive Advertising Marketplace”, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an agency consisting of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who together sell 86% of online advertising in the U.S. The IAB focuses on educating marketers, agencies, and the entire business community on the value of interactive advertising, recommending standards and best practices for the industry, and performing in-depth research on internet advertising.

What Can The IAB Do For You?

The IAB provides extensive information and resources for their members including research, case studies, training, and events. Here are just a few of the resources available to take advantage of:

Insights and Research section of their website keeps you up to date with the latest trends, data, and strategies to be a successful online advertiser.

Standards, Guidelines, and Best Practices section for the industry.

Annual Professional Development Series delivers advanced training on the latest and ever-changing tools, strategies, and best practices in interactive advertising.

IAB Events provides the best information on events for marketers, agencies, advertisers, publishers, and solution providers.

Interactive Boot Camp for Senior Marketers and Agencies is an IAB program that gives executives a flexible, in-depth educational program to learn the best and most effective ways to utilize interactive media.

Interactive 101 On-Demand is a series of webinars that provide an overview of the most critical topics in interactive advertising.

Find more information and a summary of these events at http://www.iab.net/events_training.

THE IAB Makes Headlines

The IAB is making noise in the news due to their President and CEO Randall Rothenberg’s recent letter to the Federal Trade Commission. In his open letter to the FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, Rothenberg criticized portions of the FTC’s new rules regarding endorsements and testimonials by bloggers and called on him to withdraw recently issued enforcement guidance.

In his quite amusing and sarcastic letter, he tells the chairman he felt he had to cancel his recent Twitter feed containing a photograph of a baked halibut dish he had made to surprise his wife because he was worried he was violating the FTC’s new rules by endorsing a book he had received as a gift 13 years earlier from an editor. The point of the story is that he feels the new rules are extremely confusing; saying that they basically state that the Internet – the cheapest, most accessible communications medium ever invented – should have less freedom than other media. He feels the rules unfairly penalize online media for practices that traditional media has been engaging in for decades.

Click this link to view his open letter.