Mapping online advertising issues, and the industry and regulatory initiatives aimed at addressing them May 2020 Stephen Adshead, Yi Shen Chan, Tony Lavender, Laura Wilkinson, Aude Schoentgen plumconsulting.co.uk About Plum Plum is an independent consulting firm, focused on the telecommunications, media, technology, and adjacent sectors. We apply extensive industry knowledge, consulting experience, and rigorous analysis to address challenges and opportunities across regulatory, radio spectrum, economic, commercial, and technology domains. About this study This is a study for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport on online advertising issues and self-regulatory initiatives. The research objectives are: (A) to assess the nature, scale and causes of harms arising from online advertising, and (B) to assess the current initiatives available to deal with these issues and to identify areas for improvement. Plum Consulting 10 Fitzroy Square London W1T 5HP T +44 20 7047 1919 E
[email protected] Online advertising issues, and industry and regulatory initiatives Contents In brief 5 Executive summary 6 Online advertising issues 6 Scale of harmful advertising 7 Current regulatory initiatives 10 Effectiveness of the current system 11 1 Introduction 14 1.1 Terms of reference 14 1.2 Methodology 15 1.3 Caveats 16 1.4 Overview of the online advertising market 16 1.5 Structure of this report 18 2 Online advertising issues 19 3 Consumer issues 22 3.1 What is inappropriate advertising? 22 3.2 What is the scale of inappropriate advertising?