By Lou Mastria
Big Idea: Consumer-brand engagement in 2025 will increasingly rely on relevant advertising on sites, apps, CTV, and streaming devices. Give consumers consistency with ‘AdChoices’ over targeted ads in this evolving landscape.
Responsible consumer-brand engagement meets the customer where they are. With respect to digital advertising and privacy, such an exchange has meant addressing two evergreen questions: “Why did I get this ad?” and “What can I do about it?”
This consumer mindset is a valuable opportunity for brands that deploy AdChoices across ads, sites, apps, devices and screens. AdChoices gives brands and publishers the ability to let your customer, or prospective customer know, in real-time, how you responsibly deal with data and what controls you can offer them.
So, brand this moment. Make it part of your brand story, in your brand voice. Be proactive with consumers on these increasingly top-of-mind questions and they’ll reward you with their loyalty.
What once was just a cookie, is today multiple identifiers…
There was once a digital advertising landscape that relied mainly on cookies and mobile ad identifiers (IDs) to enable relevant, accountable, measurable interest-based advertising. That world has markedly changed – and so has advertisers’ use of technology to accomplish much of the same from years ago. Through all of this, DAA Principles – and the AdChoices program which embodies them – continues to remain a beacon of consumer trust and a portal for information.
Some of these technological changes were forced by the potential loss of third-party cookies, which may or may not be the case any longer. In 2025, a number of alternate IDs and approaches have emerged, alongside cookies. Today, we have hashed emails and hashed phone numbers – which we call token identifiers – as well as IP addresses and other methodologies. We call today’s portfolio approach to marketing “cookies and beyond” – which includes CTV/streaming, among other addressable digital media categories.
Also, a number of state privacy laws have been enacted. Thankfully, most of them align to the transparency and controls already built into the AdChoices program – which has been our industry’s primary workhorse for privacy and innovation since 2010. AdChoices also complements laws in other countries and regions (for the multinational organizations out there).
….Still, AdChoices stands as a rock
2025 is our 15th year in the marketplace. Self- and co-regulation, it can be said, is alive and well, as we’ve expanded into 37 countries and 28 languages – and now support the most commonly used targeted ad technologies.
Wherever data is used to support targeted advertising, the straightforward approach of AdChoices is that much more valuable. As we enter 2025, brands and publishers may undertake a host of actions to keep their growing list of identifiers and platforms in step with the DAA Principles. On the other side, for consumers, all they have to do is click the AdChoices Icon – just as they have done for more than a decade.
Our opportunity now is to use the widely recognized AdChoices Icon gateway to provide privacy information and controls on newer platforms, such as CTV, and others where the consumer-brand engagement is taking place more often today
Two links to place in your privacy disclosures…
First, make sure you’re linking to the updated DAA’s consumer choice tools for today’s and tomorrow’s technologies. You can link to all of our control tools (YourAdChoices, AppChoices and WebChoices) - in English and in Spanish (in the US) from one URL, though legacy links will still be supported:
https://youradchoices.com/control
Second, make sure you are describing traditional and newer identifiers being used in the market. We have enabled a free cross-industry consumer resource to help advertisers/publishers explain existing and newer identifiers to their audiences in straightforward language (English and Spanish). This is called About Identifiers.
https://www.aboutidentifiers.org
We encourage you to link to it from your and your partners'/clients' privacy policies, ads and apps.
Through these actions, brands can solidify and unify many ad-related privacy communications through “AdChoices.” This single and simple approach can keep the consumer-brand engagement on the “right” side of the consumer - regardless of changes in technology or laws. That’s a winning 2025 playbook.
