# S3 E22 T77 - Scott Cunningham – Alliance for Audited Media

S3 E22 T77 - Scott Cunningham – Alliance for Audited Media 

[00:00:00]  

[00:00:03] Tom: You are  

[00:00:17] Tom Limongello: Welcome to The Middlemen Podcast. I'm here with you, Scott, and we're gonna interview another Scott. How you doing? 

[00:00:24] Scott Messer: Uh, I'm doing very well. Luckily, Scott Cunningham and I have very different voices, so our listeners at home will be able to tell the difference. And I think we look different too, so got that going for us 

[00:00:34] Tom Limongello: Scott comes to us from, uh, a, a long history of being in this particular space. I mean, he's a guy who started the IAB Tech Lab, or one of the people who started it. Um, he was at Tag, he was at Federated, so he really knows the space. But he's now at something called, uh, the Alliance for Audited Media, which I did not know is over 100 years old 

[00:00:56] Scott Messer: Surprisingly it is. They were, uh, selling the [00:01:00] original, uh, newspaper reach audiences, I think, which they still report on 

[00:01:04] Tom Limongello: Yeah, and I think what was interesting, and we'll, we'll get into this in the episode, but we just had Collin Colburn from the IAB on, and to give you some context, when I was working at Quotient, we were approached by all sorts of verification companies, Tag and, and others, where as a retailer or as, as a representative of retailers, we were kind of like, "Do we really need this?" 

[00:01:26] Tom Limongello: And the episode that we just had with Collin Colburn, um, was about how, you know, potentially retailers don't need to do exactly what the rest of the open web has done. They don't need to potentially standardize, but they probably should disclose how they measure. Then there's, uh, having independent third-party verification, and then there's like MRC accreditation, which is sort of bulletproof but a little more difficult, expensive, maybe too much for the job in this case, at least for the, for the retailer, uh, segment [00:02:00] where there's lots of retailers. 

[00:02:01] Tom Limongello: There's the big guys and there's little guys. Does everybody need the same equipment for this? Um, and I came out of this episode thinking that it seemed very reasonable, um, but you know, wanted to know what you thought. 

[00:02:17] Scott Messer: Well, I am a, a skeptic at all times of people selling you solutions. So I had, uh, several questions for, for Scott during our episode, and they really get around to like, do we need this and why do we need it? So that retailers and brands can think about how to justify it in their budgets, in their plans, in their strategies, because this isn't just a, a simple vitamin that you take and it goes away. 

[00:02:42] Scott Messer: You are committing to a, a certain level of transparency and, um, disclosing some of your methods. But ultimately, it becomes a way to help the markets strengthen and recover, if you believe the data, from downturns in advertising [00:03:00] spend. And I think we'll agree that it's not the thing that will make your ad revenue go up, but it is a requirement for mature marketplaces that there are audited media standards and so that everyone can know what your counting method is and how you're sort of running your numbers so that they can have some, some faith in them as they continue to increase their investments. 

[00:03:26] Tom Limongello: Yeah, and I think there is some urgency that he brings up at the beginning. Now, obviously, um, measurement is a symptom maybe of the problem, but, you know, it could be the fact that the denominator has gotten bigger. Um, you know, there's more retail media networks, they're making more money, so the actual growth in revenue is coming down. 

[00:03:46] Tom Limongello: Um, but is that, you know, is that as big of a problem, um, or is it the same problem that we saw in the open web prior to RTB? Um, or prior to mobile or prior to, you know, whatever the, the, the trend [00:04:00] or change in the market that we're talking about. So Scott Cunningham's gonna go th-through some of that history, and I think his perspective is pretty valuable, um, and so we should listen. Welcome to the Middlemen podcast. We are here today with Scott Cunningham of the Alliance for Audited Media. Hello, Scott. Where are you today?  

[00:04:19] Scott Cunningham: I'm right outside Boulder, Colorado. Thanks for having me. Yeah 

[00:04:23] Tom Limongello: Yeah, no, it's good to have you here, so we've been talking since, I think, the spring. But since then we've had Collin Colburn from the IAB on the podcast, and he kinda dropped a bomb and said that retailers aren't gonna standardize their measurement, but they might wanna disclose their measurement, and he's thinking about ways of doing that. 

[00:04:41] Tom Limongello: Um, but I think from our discussions, you wanna go even a step further. So I want you to tell us what's AAM, and what are you trying to do in this market? What, what are the changes you're looking for? 

[00:04:51] Scott Cunningham: Yeah. My Background, you know, the years I spent with the IAB and standing up the IAB Tech Lab is, historically, uh, standards-based, right? And, uh, when I was in the [00:05:00] middle of the trade bodies. And issuing standards and, and is one thing. Um, but when it comes to compliance, it's a different scenario. 

[00:05:08] Scott Cunningham: And, um, part of the work that I, I wanted to jump into and, and join up with AAM as a fractional officer here was to really rethink compliance. And, you know, we have the MRC standards, the I-IAB Tech Lab standards. You have the IAB guidelines, uh, and, and other, uh, groups out there. But when it comes to auditable standards and the mechanisms, the barrier of entry around MRC is actually quite substantial. 

[00:05:35] Scott Cunningham: Uh, and, and rightfully so, right? To get those check marks, you really have to go through a rigorous process. But, um, outside of measurement, we still have a lot of compliance gaps. So, Alliance for Audited Media is actually an entity. It's been around 100 years. It was founded by the ANA, uh, to actually report on circulation, audience circulation numbers in the newspaper and magazine industry. 

[00:05:56] Scott Cunningham: And over the decades and decades, it's evolved [00:06:00] into a much different organization when it comes to certifications and standards. But it actually still reports out on audiences, but now digital. Um, a lot of websites, apps, you name it, uh, and many fronts. Uh, you know, when we think about, um, viewability and, you know, measurement, and we measure these types of systems, AAM actually goes in to publishers and takes a look under the hood and says, "Your CRM says this is the amount of deterministic audiences you have. 

[00:06:31] Scott Cunningham: Here's the amount of newsletter subscribers you have." So that's a very different auditable, uh, work stream. And so I think what we've done here with AAM, uh, and incrementality and retail media is also, uh, unique to it, uh, on that front 

[00:06:45] Tom Limongello: Yeah, I think what's interesting, I think probably to our audience is my experience with any type of standardization in retail media was that even though we consider retail media networks, that those retailers are publishers and they're trying to, you know, [00:07:00] move into a more sophisticated position like publishers have been forced to do, um, they've always felt like they were special because they have a commerce relationship with the consumer. 

[00:07:10] Tom Limongello: So some of the things that the publishers had to do maybe didn't apply to them. And generally it was kind of like, well, there's no IVT here or there's no, you know, there's no fraud because we have to, you know, protect the commerce relationship and the consumer journey, so why would we ever allow any of that to happen? 

[00:07:28] Scott Messer: actually, Tom, it wasn't that, it wasn't that there wasn't fraud, it was that they didn't care about fraud because fraud didn't make purchases necessarily. Now, some does, but like for them, if you swiped a credit card and bought something, that's what they care about. So they didn't care if bots were coming to their site or these things, and I think they figured out how to take it out of their metrics. 

[00:07:48] Scott Messer: But there still is plenty of fraud and bots and ad blocking and all sorts of fun things on commerce sites. So I'm sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt you, but I 

[00:07:56] Tom Limongello: Oh, no, no. I think we could probably, you know, get towards the end of the [00:08:00] episode and talk about AI where it's all gonna come full circle, and there'll be lots of new types of 

[00:08:04] Scott Messer: don't make me do that 

[00:08:05] Tom Limongello: yeah. 

[00:08:06] Scott Cunningham: Yep 

[00:08:07] Tom Limongello: Um, but yeah, I think, you know, let's still, let's start slowly. Um, let's get into the conversation. 

[00:08:13] Tom Limongello: What's it been like talking to retailers? 'Cause ha- I mean, I would assume that they've taken that position, which is, "We're special. We don't need this." 

[00:08:19] Scott Cunningham: Yeah, I can, um, I can address the IVT stuff and all that in, in a second here. But, Colin Had me in at the IAB and, and we presented to the commerce committee on what our thinking was. And when the IAB, IAB Europe, and MRC, they created the, uh, retail media standards out there, they're pretty extensive, right? 

[00:08:37] Scott Cunningham: And if You look at them, it's, it's quite substantial to have to go through those things. But in, uh, December 2025, IAB Europe and IAB issued guidance around incrementality and methodology specifically, and that became kind of the hot button issue, right? And so, uh, what we did with AAM is we zeroed in on that framework in order for us to [00:09:00] understand how, um, each one of the retail media companies is identifying incrementality. 

[00:09:05] Scott Cunningham: Now, I'm gonna start with Why would we do this? I've talked to the marketers and the buyers, and their feedback was that, "Look, we are not going to poke too hard on the media investment transparency here." The reason is we're a buyer and a seller. And I said, "Well, how do you-- how so? What do you mean?" He's like, "Well, we buy the media, but we also sell our products on their store shelves. 

[00:09:30] Scott Cunningham: So if we poke too hard on this data, we're afraid they're gonna put our product in the back of the store." So there became a conflict on that, and they were reluctant to poke on these things. I said, "Okay, that's, that's good to know." And so when you have that type of conflict, you start to see lack of media investment or... 

[00:09:49] Scott Cunningham: And what we found was that the IAB, the last three years, has a reported that there's a rate of deceleration of media investment in retail media, and this is coming from the [00:10:00] IAB numbers. And in, um, I think it was twenty twenty-four, if I'm not mistaken, yeah, twenty twenty-four, is twenty-three percent had retail media growth and media investment. 

[00:10:11] Scott Cunningham: In twenty twenty-five, it was thirteen point two, and in twenty twenty-six it's twelve point one percent. So when I presented these numbers to the Commerce Committee at IAB, I said, "Look, you are not unique." There's been other markets where we've seen decelerating rates of media investment, uh, against these things, and the reason is because of lack of assurance, lack of trust. 

[00:10:35] Scott Cunningham: It means that they're voting with their wallet on that front. It doesn't mean your market's not growing. It's just not growing the lovely way it was before. And so we cited the organic foods industry when the FDA and, and USDA got involved, uh, against that. And then more recently is applicable to, um, I'll just say, you know, our industry, uh, point-of-care industry with media and marketing was, was a big one when it came to media [00:11:00] investment. 

[00:11:00] Scott Cunningham: You had point-of-care marketing. You know, those are like the doctor's offices. You've got print materials, digital interfaces. You've got, you know, pharmaceutical industry spending money. There was no oversight or standard. Then there was a big blow-up. One of the largest channel partners was called out, uh, for fabricating some numbers. 

[00:11:18] Scott Cunningham: And so the industry stepped in, and when the industry, including Alliance for Audited Media, stepped in and started auditing against these things, you saw the rate of growth go up a hundred and seventy-one percent, uh, within a three-year period And I will say that even in the display media industry, and this goes back even to my time with the IAB, and I'll explain this if, if anybody goes back a ways. 

[00:11:39] Scott Cunningham: You know, in 2003 to 2005, we created the IAB Ad Map as an industry, right? We needed to grow digital, so we created banner ads, we created the ad standards, and we saw the rate of growth go up to even 35%. And then we started to see it trail off to the point where actually it was negative in 2009, [00:12:00] which was the recession. 

[00:12:01] Scott Cunningham: And then coming back out of the recession, we saw the rate of growth come back. And in 2011, that rate of growth reached about 23%. But then in 2012, 2013, 2014, it fell off and was flat. And you guys all remember reason why it fell off is we had programmatic problems. We had trust problems. We had ad fraud problems. 

[00:12:24] Scott Cunningham: In 2015, we released the IAB Tech guidelines, and then you started to have MRC accreditation. You had the trustworthy accountability group, and then the rate of media investment grew again. And so those were the years that I was with the IAB. And, and so the point I'm making here is, is that standards and compliance do help a market grow in the rate of media investment against these things. 

[00:12:46] Scott Cunningham: And I think what we're seeing here in retail media, principally incrementality, is that rate of deceleration. I don't know where the bottom is, but I can guarantee you that as companies like retail media companies step into compliance, uh, or at [00:13:00] least transparency on their methodology, we should see that rate of growth, uh, um, um, uh, be positive again, if that makes sense 

[00:13:09] Tom Limongello: I think it makes sense. I think that it would be kind of interesting to hear, you know, you, you mentioned a little bit before, uh, you know, in the early 2000s up to 2008, it was the standard formats. In this case, you're saying that it's the measurement that needs to be, uh, standardized to make sure that the investment will grow. 

[00:13:30] Tom Limongello: Why, why is it that you think that's it? 'Cause I could also think about just the idea of understanding what's happening from one retail media network to the next. Is that sort of why measurement gets there? Or like, the unified view for either the agency or the brand has been the pain point that I've heard. 

[00:13:45] Tom Limongello: Is that sort of what this gets to be? 

[00:13:47] Scott Cunningham: It is. And so, you know, oftentimes you're gonna hear the buyers say it's- it would be better if we had interoperable standards across retail media networks so that we can compare apples to apples. In, and candidly, that's true. Um, [00:14:00] we're not there yet, right? And so the stepstones here that I think we're articulating, I think Collin outlined maybe step one was, do you have public disclosures? 

[00:14:09] Scott Cunningham: Do you have disclosures? And so what we did with the auditable framework was that was one criteria that we audited against, the public disclosures. But in that process, the, uh, retail media companies will declare what their methodology is to us and, and at AAM, and our auditors will go in, validate the methodology as outlined in the 2025, uh, IAB, IAB Europe guidelines of incrementality. 

[00:14:34] Scott Cunningham: And there's four categories there. The auditors will go in, they'll take a look at that, and then we'll take a look at some sample data to determine the success rate against those things, and that's the next step. Now, does that get us to a uniform measurement standard across retail media networks? Not necessarily. 

[00:14:51] Scott Cunningham: Not necessarily, but it gets us to transparency against the different methodologies out there, and that's a, that's a big step in and of itself 

[00:14:59] Scott Messer: I'm [00:15:00] gonna take a-- 

[00:15:00] Tom Limongello: come in on 

[00:15:01] Scott Messer: Yeah, I wanna take a step back into this of like helping our audience understand why brands need interoperability across retail media networks and how that, um, when you don't have that actually degrades investor confidence and they start pulling out of the market. Um, 'cause I don't think it's quite logical, right? 

[00:15:25] Scott Messer: You're like, "I'm a retail media network and people spend money with me, and my investments are going up." Uh, but what is it when confidence in your measurement breaks down, and then how does that affect the buyer ultimately to come to like a full, uh, platform surface pullback in spend? 

[00:15:47] Scott Cunningham: So there's, there's two things I think you, you mentioned here. One was interoperability of the standard measurement across multiple networks versus the comfort level of third-party assurance or at least the assurance on the methodology. And, and [00:16:00] so let's, let's address the latter first here because I think this is where the AAM incrementality framework and the guidelines went, which was to take a look at, you know, the causality of that incrementality methodology that they have, that they're arguing. 

[00:16:14] Scott Cunningham: And, and AAM being a third-party assurance provider, they can go through this process as a retail media network, um, and validate their methodology. Now, does it validate the methodology against a measurement standard of apples to apples? No, it does not. But I do think that that is a first stepping stone in order for us to make sure that media investment is still thriving in certain networks, uh, for that third-party validation. 

[00:16:39] Scott Cunningham: If you really were gonna like, you know, knock the socks off the network, then you would want incrementality standardized across multiple retail media networks because that's a scaled promise. And then media investment buyers can say, "Look, I'm gonna buy against this methodology across these six different retail media [00:17:00] networks 'cause they all have the same apples to apples type of approach, and therefore I know I'm gonna get the scaled buy against those things." 

[00:17:07] Scott Cunningham: I think that in some cases though, depending on how that's measured, Scott, um, I, I've changed my tune, uh, a little bit over the years on this one, especially when it came to measurement of like viewability and what we saw from publishers operating on the open web. That was an extraction of, of data. It was an extraction of measurement, uh, because the open web was very porous. 

[00:17:32] Scott Cunningham: So in many respects, I can understand why retail media companies are wanna lock things down, um, and maybe not just let everyone have access to the measurement, uh, like we saw on the open web. But I think there's ways to do this to standardize the measurement but make sure that the retail media companies are giving it to the actual buyers who are buying against it and be transparent with them versus just opening it up, because I think what we found there was that... 

[00:17:59] Scott Cunningham: well, let's [00:18:00] be quite candid, in my opinion, the DSPs became the center of measurement and attribution, and that became a problem on the open web for publishers to thrive. And I don't think retail media companies wanna follow that, that 

[00:18:10] Scott Messer: So do you think retail media networks then would be hesitant to want to find a standard? Even if, even if you tell them that finding one is best for the entire industry or the entire collection of retail media networks, that some of them would rather not participate or not contribute to a, a group solution and see if they can be the lone survivor 

[00:18:37] Scott Cunningham: We've seen that, right? We've seen that, uh, play out with, with large platforms, but let's, let's, let's circle back on this one. Um, Google, for the longest time, had a, had a competing ad tech stack, and it still does, right? It has AdX and, and other things. For the longest time, they were participants in the IAB but had not adopted [00:19:00] OpenRTB as a specification. 

[00:19:02] Scott Cunningham: That changed because they recognized that they couldn't actually continue on without making some interoperable changes so that the media investments and, and these systems could work together. Um, even, even Amazon when it, uh, announced a prebid adapter. You know, I think, you know, we find that even the giant platforms at some cases and some point in time have to kind of adopt where the marketplace is going. 

[00:19:27] Scott Cunningham: And I think on retail media networks, we'll probably find, you know, maybe an Amazon or a Walmart are gonna be a longer-term holdouts because they're the, they're the big dogs out there. But on retail media networks, I think as, as long as the rest of them are at least identifying the three different methodologies, and there, there's gonna be three or four there, and then over time we'll probably see one or two win out because the outcomes of those methodologies perform better and you'll find some shift. 

[00:19:53] Scott Cunningham: And so this takes time, you know, against those things and, and organically people kind of fall in, fall in place or [00:20:00] companies fall in place over time 

[00:20:02] Scott Messer: I like that. Tom, do you agree that that's how it's gonna start? Like where in the, where in the, the deciles of retail media network size and, and proficiency do you think it'll start? Like I, I think I'll give, I'll give you that Scott's probably right, that Amazon and Walmart will probably be the last two. 

[00:20:19] Scott Messer: Um, but does it start at the very bottom? Does it start in the middle? Is it ear- like what makes them an early adopter that-- Who are the people that get into this? 

[00:20:30] Tom Limongello: I think there's, you know, retailers don't want to team up, at least in the U- in the US. We are seeing some of that internationally happen. There are some alliances happening. Um, but in the US it seems like M&A is the only solution. So you have, you know, somebody like a Kroger buying Giant Eagle. Um, so interesting there. 

[00:20:51] Tom Limongello: I'm thinking that, and th- this is something I'd love to hear, Scott Cunningham, you, you give us a feel for. Do you think it's the commerce media [00:21:00] networks that do this before the retailers because they are closer to publishers even though they have their own first-party data? 

[00:21:07] Scott Cunningham: It could be. So le- let me, let me separate the conversation here a little, 'cause I- what I'm poking on is the four incrementality measurement methodologies, which are experiment-based, model-based, counterfactual, econometric, and hybrid proxies. Those are the four that were defined by the working groups in the IAB, uh, and published in that. 

[00:21:26] Scott Cunningham: So when I say those four, each one of them has an opportunity to disclose and declare which methodology for incrementality that they're, um, they're supporting. Now, what you're talking about is, um, will they stitch their assets together in such a way a- against these common denominators? Quite candidly, I, I'm not really sure. 

[00:21:46] Scott Cunningham: The only reason why they would do that wouldn't be a methodology base, it would probably be that, um, it would be based on scale, and we- we've seen that over time, right? You have different partnerships, you have different newspaper groups or broadcast groups, for example, [00:22:00] declaring a partnership together. 

[00:22:01] Scott Cunningham: Heck, the one I built with, uh, the Local Media Consortium, NewsPass, is a, uh, combination of thousands of publishers, and we've got about eight billion ad requests, uh, a month going through the system. And the reason why I'm able to accomplish that is standards, right? Display standards and, and interoperability on that front. 

[00:22:18] Scott Cunningham: So, um, I don't know if, uh, retailers or commerce are gonna step into that type of thing. I, I think what'll happen here is if they start... Uh, look, this comes back to the buyer. If the buyer doesn't put their thumb on the scale and say, "You know what? I'm gonna not invest any more into these things," then yeah, they're gonna react. 

[00:22:40] Scott Cunningham: These commerce networks are gonna react and start bolting these things together, and then they're gonna go back to the buyer and say, "Hey, w- now there's two of us together against the same methodology. How would you like to buy us at scale combined?" Right? And that, that does happen in the market, too 

[00:22:52] Tom Limongello: Yeah, I mean, I think we heard this with clean rooms that this was gonna happen, um, that all of a sudden everybody's gonna use a clean room, but it was too [00:23:00] expensive. And so from your perspective, you talk to a retailer, is this an expensive change or is this something that's just potentially not in their short-term interest? 

[00:23:11] Scott Cunningham: You mean from the audit perspective of the 

[00:23:13] Tom Limongello: Yeah. Like, like when you, you say, "Oh, you should really be standardizing," what does that mean from an implementation perspective? 

[00:23:20] Scott Cunningham: those four methodologies from the IAB, I'm, I'm operating under the fact that, um, we've spoken to a lot of them and, and each one of them is using one of the methodologies for incrementality. The challenge here is, is that, um, there's no third-party assurance in saying that the data that they're actually collecting to demonstrate incremental sales, um, actually follows that methodology and ther- therefore there's no third-party audit. 

[00:23:43] Scott Cunningham: I do think, 'cause we've already had a couple SOWs signed in the last four to six weeks, so I know that we are, we, the retailers are, are paying attention to what we're doing here,, ,  

[00:23:53] Tom Limongello: getting back to who's gonna do this, I think that was a good question, Scott. Um, it [00:24:00] may not be the smallest of the small, um, because they're gonna be sort of aggregated by POS systems that maybe don't really care about, uh, this level of sophistication. I think the bigger guys do care about the level of sophistication. 

[00:24:15] Tom Limongello: You know, like we had, um, Dollar General come on, and Austin Leonard was basically like, "We wanna do everything to make us investment grade." And so, like I think that those, those types of networks who are national but are maybe not as big as Walmart are interested in figuring out how to do an upfront and look really good in front of advertisers, right? 

[00:24:36] Scott Cunningham: Well, you're talking about a time here in the fall. Um, you will see some announcements from us, uh, with some, uh, retail media networks, uh, that have gone through the process. And, and part of that is timing too, in the fall, uh, where you wanna make a splash. You know, you have Adweek, you have other type of events, getting ready for 2027. 

[00:24:55] Scott Cunningham: So we, we will be making some announcements on that front. Um, but you know what's [00:25:00] interesting here is you've also seen, um, you know, CVS and Parbs, you have Dollar General, you have other people talking about this, and they all recognize the problem. They all see the problem, but sometimes it takes socializing to say, "Look, there is a solution here to that problem," uh, against that. 

[00:25:16] Scott Cunningham: And, and by the way, some I talk to, they are, uh, going and looking hard at the MRC accreditation process because they're thinking about their own ad servers. They're thinking about these things, and that's something I'd recommend. If you are gonna go build these things, and that size and that substantial, then you probably should go through an MRC-accredited process, uh, on that front 

[00:25:37] Scott Messer: let me ask, um, I like this part where it's like the, the, the networks themselves can sort of band together and elect to do this, but I think you're right about the buy side needs to put pressure on them first. And it's interesting because, um, is it, it... I think in r- commerce media and retail media, you have to think about there are brands, there are agencies. 

[00:25:57] Scott Messer: There's not really [00:26:00] DSPs in this, which I think would've been a big driver of, you know, requiring, uh, audited media. So is it do brands care or is it the agencies that care? And is it gonna be one of these classic scenarios where everybody cares except the brand doesn't wanna, the, the agency doesn't wanna do it because the brand isn't looking and paying attention? 

[00:26:23] Scott Messer: Or like, is the pressure gonna come from the brand or the agency first, is my question. 

[00:26:29] Scott Cunningham: I, I think the agencies, uh, are on this one, and the reason because what I cited before in that the brands are reluctant to poke too hard on these things because they're a buyer and a seller. They don't wanna have any potential repercussions against these things. They-- And, and I've got a buyer steering committee that I put together with brands and agencies at Alliance for Audited Media, and this is the feedback I get. 

[00:26:49] Scott Cunningham: And they're reluctant to do this and put the thumb on the scale sometimes because, you know, they're just like, "I don't want any negative effect from me asking too many questions." But make no mistake, I would love to understand whether or [00:27:00] not this is real information I'm getting on incrementality, right? 

[00:27:02] Scott Cunningham: So 

[00:27:02] Scott Messer: want their slotting fees to go up and to get put on a lower shelf, right? 

[00:27:07] Scott Cunningham: right. And yeah, that's exactly right. And so I think because the, the agencies don't represent the product on the shelf necessarily, uh, that the brand does, uh, the agency will be the proxy who probably enforces some of these things, uh, over the course of time. I think you bring up a good point on the clean room stuff though, too, 'cause I, I do wanna talk to this a little bit. 

[00:27:26] Scott Cunningham: You know, one of the things we started to talk to the commerce media, uh, in particular, 'cause you said they're aligned to publishers, um, I would love to see all of them become members of AAM like the other thousand publishers from People Inc to Hearst and everybody else, because it gives them the opportunity to disclose and declare their audiences in the audit process and the CRM. 

[00:27:47] Scott Cunningham: And the way I describe that is it actually gives them justification not to have to open up to all different, uh, crawling and scraping and, and external measurement type of scenarios that we saw on the open web. [00:28:00] Uh, I want them to protect their data, but I wanna make sure that the buyer feels confident in their, in their audience information too, and cus- customer information 

[00:28:07] Scott Messer: I like that, um, sort of plea for the, for them, but I wonder if it's really a problem for these retail media networks. And I know we discussed, like, why they need audited media, but, like, is audience size a thing to the retail media networks? It really just comes down to proof is in the pudding, like, did I sell stuff for you? 

[00:28:28] Scott Messer: Uh, Tom, I'm, I'm looking at you 'cause that's what we hear from retail media networks all day long, right? Is like, "If we sell it, it works." Um, but I think what Scott Cunningham is sort of alluding to is, like, 

[00:28:40] Scott Messer: not only is it declining, but the, uh, with the proliferation of retail media networks, you're starting to sell against a lot of other people, and there's a lot of noise in the room. And if you wanna lead with audience and reach as, sort of a precursor for, "We will sell stuff for you," you're gonna wanna have those [00:29:00] numbers validated and not just making stuff up 

[00:29:03] Scott Cunningham: Yeah, that's, that's the theory I'm working on on that one. Um, you know, obviously incrementality is, is where, where most heads are at. But I do think as we, and this is the, the conversation around LLMs, right? And there's 30 to 50,000 scrapers that are hitting anybody who's operating on the open web. It's an autonomous web operator. 

[00:29:22] Scott Cunningham: Doesn't matter if it's a brand, a premium news publisher, or a retail media company, this is the game. And so as, as they all look at how to lock things down and say, "Here's my inclusion list of 20 scrapers," well, if that's the way we're gonna approach it, and I encourage them to get a handle on that data extraction and what's happening, well, if, if we're gonna, if we're gonna justify that, then they're gonna need some third-party validation than what's happening behind the firewall, uh, that they put up around these things, right? 

[00:29:51] Scott Cunningham: And, and on the open web, we're trying to put the genie back in the bottle a little bit on this, and I actually think we'll be successful. I'm very positive on that. But in order to get there, then the [00:30:00] buyers and the brands are gonna say, "Okay, you've kinda shut off third-party measurement or at least access points. 

[00:30:06] Scott Cunningham: I'm gonna want some independent validation of exactly what you got cooking under the hood here." And, and I think that's partly CRM. That's partly the loyalty rewards programs. That's partly, you know, email newsletter opt-in programs. And, and if you're gonna sell those numbers, well, then there's gotta be some assurance 'cause you're selling those numbers 

[00:30:23] Tom Limongello: Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, the, your point about putting the genie back in the bottle could be helpful in assurance, um, or reassurance. And I think that what I guess I've heard from your early argument was, the rate of increase is going down, and in the past, what we've done is fixed that and made sure that companies like The Trade Desk, you know, align to the R- uh, RTB standard, um, so that they could increase the amount of throughput there. 

[00:30:51] Tom Limongello: But I think Scott was sort of dancing around this one too, is that the retailers are not looking to programmatically, you know, to basically [00:31:00] turn this into a programmatic, uh, opportunity. They are moving to DV360 and Trade Desk and other, uh, DSPs. So they're kind of doing both things, but still worried about the fact that they don't, they don't want this to be so easy to get to that they don't have their own proposition anymore or that they can be aggregated. 

[00:31:19] Scott Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah, and, and, and that's a, that's a great argument. I guess I'm using OpenRTB more as an analogy, uh, and, and how markets have, have re- have encountered friction and needed, this type of interoperable standardization for adoption than we saw accelerated rate of growth on media investment f- uh, followed on that. 

[00:31:37] Scott Cunningham: Um, I'm not suggesting retail media or commerce media is gonna get into the business of OpenRTB or programmatic. I know a lot of them are not. But, but if they're gonna continue to grow that rate, they're gonna have to align against different standards and methodologies such as incrementality, and then be transparent against those as a, as a stepping stone. 

[00:31:57] Scott Cunningham: Otherwise, what we've s- observed is a flat [00:32:00] market, you know? It's like, uh, media investment's still there. Maybe this one company is growing, but is the rate of growth the way we experienced it before? And the answer is no, it's kinda bottomed out or flattened. Well, why? 

[00:32:10] Scott Cunningham: Well, because, you 

[00:32:11] Tom Limongello: Well, yeah, I, I think you also have a 

[00:32:13] Scott Messer: I think it's, I, I, I do think it's a little 

[00:32:15] Tom Limongello: adding networks and it looks like it's growing faster than it is 

[00:32:19] Scott Cunningham: Can 

[00:32:19] Scott Messer: it's a little early to call that, that alli- uh, audited media is the, is the cause for a bottoming out of the market. But I think you're right, it's certainly a contributing factor 

[00:32:32] Scott Cunningham: Oh, no, I, you know, from an Audited Media perspective, you know, we're just trying to help the market grow on, on, on that standard in incrementality. You know, the data, a- and this is where Tom and I are talking about it as well, the data of rate of deceleration is based on IAB numbers, right? They've report out on numbers of, you know, how big a market's growing on these things. 

[00:32:52] Scott Cunningham: So their, their own IAB numbers are showing that the rate is going down. Um, I do think that AAM can play a role in making sure [00:33:00] this... But it's, but AAM's just one, one solution set that's gonna, uh, push that, help push that button. The, the, the retailers and commerce me- they have to lean in on these things, right? 

[00:33:08] Scott Cunningham: They do have to lean in on these things themselves. Just because we had one or two come, you know, this fall that, you know, announcement if not more, it, it doesn't actually probably, uh, push the needle far enough to see that rate of increased, uh, the way they, they saw the hockey stick growth, um, you know, earlier, three to five years ago 

[00:33:26] Tom Limongello: But that's great. You have, uh, some announcements coming this fall. We wanna keep up with that. How do we keep up with you and what you are doing? Where are you gonna be? How do, how do we sort of get the, the listeners to know how to connect with you? 

[00:33:39] Scott Cunningham: Yeah, when it comes to conferences, I will, I will be at the three ANA conferences this fall. I'll be at the, uh, ANA AI conference, uh, 'cause we didn't even talk about AI and IVT yet. Um, and then I will be at the ANA, yeah, we, I, I, the ANA, uh, measurement and analytics conference and, you know, retail and commerce will be discussed [00:34:00] in those forums for sure. 

[00:34:01] Scott Cunningham: So I'll... And I'm also, um, uh, an instructor of transparency for the ANA and the marketers, um, across the board there. So, um, I'll have a presence, m- um, Masters of Marketing I'll be at. I'll be at Adweek as well out there in New York doing different, uh, different things as well. So that's my, that's my fall plan right now. 

[00:34:17] Scott Cunningham: Yeah. 

[00:34:18] Tom Limongello: Very good. And so, yeah, tell us about AI and, and the, the doom or whatever it is that you're, you're, you're telling us is gonna happen if, uh, if we don't get ready for it. 

[00:34:28] Scott Cunningham: Yeah, you know, we've been working with the publishers and, and part of this is just open web publishers, and I think retail and commerce media fall into the s- very same boat. So do brands, you think about it. Um, you know, there's a lot of activity happening. There's a lot of conversation around how to get your content or your brand, you know, identified within a ChatGPT or, or whoever, whatever LLM to make it look like it scored well. 

[00:34:52] Scott Cunningham: The IAB just re-released some guidelines on how to actually think about your brand or your, as a publisher and/or, uh, brand in [00:35:00] the LLMs. Um, but here's my point. Unless... If people find that they're gonna create value, especially around licensing of content or information, they have to create scarcity supply, they have to start shutting off the scrapers. 

[00:35:14] Scott Cunningham: Um, because right now, who's gonna pay for something they're getting access to for free? Um, and I think that's the rub of it. And I've also talked to a couple retailers who are trying to strike deals where, you know, the product in and of itself-- brands are starting to strike this as well. The product in and of itself is being consumed within the LLM. 

[00:35:33] Scott Cunningham: What's their, uh, annuity revenue stream there versus chucking the individual over to the checkout cart, uh, on the retailer or the brand website, uh, against those things? So those conversations are happening. I'm really encouraged by... And I think retailers should, uh, and commerce media should, you know, take a look at this. 

[00:35:51] Scott Cunningham: Um, I don't know if you saw the article from Time and, and what they're doing. They're selling sponsored content, um, now, and they're doing it for LLM purposes. [00:36:00] So you've got news publishers who are using their brand credibility out there, and the LLMs favor and weight those news publishers favorably as trusted sources, so they're selling branded content, sponsored content, so that when their systems do get crawled, you're picking up whatever brand X has put their blog out there on The Wall Street Journal or whatever. 

[00:36:24] Scott Cunningham: And well, now here's what we have. We have an AI impression, and I think it's fantastic 'cause I think retailers are gonna look at this and say, "That's something we actually could go do too." The challenge we have as an industry is we have no metric for an AI impression. In fact, all of our standards say bots are bad. 

[00:36:41] Scott Cunningham: So, and so we, we actually have to rethink this whole thing when it comes to IVT, 'cause now invalid traffic is actually something we're monetizing, uh, against this, and we have to figure out what, how to redo this, uh, 

[00:36:54] Tom Limongello: Yeah, native advertising is back, and we gotta be, we gotta learn to love the bot. Interesting. 

[00:36:58] Scott Cunningham: That's right. Yep, [00:37:00] that's right 

[00:37:01] Tom Limongello: Great. Um, Scott, any more questions for Scott? 

[00:37:05] Scott Messer: I'm just curious what you're gonna call a valid impression. 

[00:37:08] Tom Limongello: Yeah 

[00:37:09] Scott Messer: Like, what will be-- Yeah, the-- What will be the new set of acronyms that come out? It's more of a joke. I don't have, expect you to have that answer right now, 

[00:37:16] Scott Cunningham: No, actually we had this discussion and I came, it w- I, I came up with some acronym. There's a valid bot impression or VBI, valid bot impression. 

[00:37:24] Scott Cunningham: That was 

[00:37:25] Tom Limongello: You heard it here first. VBI is the 

[00:37:26] Scott Messer: there it is 

[00:37:27] Tom Limongello: acronym. 

[00:37:28] Scott Cunningham: VBI. there you go 

[00:37:30] Tom Limongello: All right. And with that, we thank you for joining "The Middlemen Podcast." Thank you. This is very enlightening. Thank you for your, your level of detail on this. This is great. 

[00:37:37] Scott Cunningham: Absolutely. Thanks guys for having me​ 

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