Page 42 - AdNews Magazine May-June 2022

Meet the Team
IAB endorsement moving from Nielsen to Ipsos,” Le Roy says.
“That then kick started the pro- cess of designing and building a new ratings product to accurately report current digital consump- tion habits across a range of devices. It’s no easy feat but the new product, Iris, will be rolled out in the middle of this year.
“I was also incredibly proud of how the team rose to the challenge and sought new ways to amplify a broader range of industry voices over the last couple of years. We love nurturing new talent and ensuring there is a diversity of peo- ple and thoughts out in the market, so it was great to unearth a huge range of industry people and give them their first opportunity to present at an industry event via our webinars.”
Le Roy says the team will con- tinue to navigate the local and global regulations impacting the digital marketing industry. This includes expanding its direct sup- port to the industry, and partner- ing with tertiary institutions.
Like many businesses in the industry, IAB Australia has imple- mented a flexible work-from-home policy. As part of the new policy staff are only required to work two days in the office a week.
“The pandemic pushed us to pro- vide even more resources for the industry and to get them to market as quickly as possible,” Le Roy says.
“While we worked from home along with the rest of Australia through much of 2020 and 2021, we’re now aiming to work two days a week in the office as a complete team, with an open door for the other three days.
“We moved into a new office at the end of 2021, and it has been fan- tastic spending time together again, planning projects, workshopping initiatives to help the industry and just having lunch together. I must say though we are still flexible on our two days in office and if the weather is bad or public transport is erratic, we just switch back to working from home easily.”
Le Roy says a benefit to having the whole team work from home is that it has been a “great equaliser'' for its two Melbourne members.
“They didn’t have to endure
CEO Gai Le Roy, office and training manager Tiffany Hill
meetings where they were on screen while the rest of us were together in a meeting room in Sydney,” she says.
“It also made it easier for the parents on our team to jump in and out of work to help their kids – though I think they’d all agree that for all our sakes, hopefully home-schooling is now well and truly over. With all those benefits however, I really do think it’s hard to replace the energy and idea sparking frisson that comes from being together. As we continue in the months ahead, we’ll be working hard to find a balance.”
The team is also able to work with IAB teams around the world fre- quently which has been accelerated by the pandemic and the shift to virtual communication.
“We really appreciate being able to tap into this incredible global virtual team,” she says.
“Continued expansion is on the cards to help us manage projects and our growing roster of events.”
Looking ahead, challenges for the wider industry that IAB will aim to address include changes to identity and privacy regulations.
“IAB is all about helping industry resolve the key issues and we are working with our members to address as many as we can,” she says.
“Top of that list is ensuring they are across changes to identity; privacy regulation and transparency requirements. The other big issue is our talent shortage. It’s having a huge negative impact on the industry, so the IAB is investing in new training programs and working with universities to entice the best and brightest new talent into the industry.”
As for trends, Le Roy says there will continue to be new ad supported digital media opportunities that emerge.
“There are, as always in our industry, many things to watch out for,” Le Roy says.
“New ad supported digital media opportunities will continue to be introduced; and retail media, gaming and shoppable formats are all important emerging areas that marketers will need to be across.
“Video will continue to be the largest growth engine in the digital advertising market, both we expect to see audio and pDOOH growing at increasing rates. As always, the IAB will provide guidance and updates on these topics regularly to help the media owners, agencies, ad tech vendors and marketers to make the most of these opportunities and feel confident in their investments.”