"Mike Zaneis to Serve as CEO, Jules Kendrick as Managing Director UK & Europe, for Consolidated Organisation under TAG Brand
London and New York – July 29, 2020 – The digital advertising industry’s two leading anti-fraud and brand safety organisations, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) and Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS), today announced an agreement to merge. Mike Zaneis will serve as CEO for the combined organization – which will carry the TAG name – while JICWEBS’s Jules Kendrick will take the new role of Managing Director of UK and Europe. The merger will be completed in early September 2020.
JICWEBS and TAG announced a formal partnership in March 2017. Since then, the two organisations have aligned their programs to strengthen standards, avoid duplicative effort, and extend their reach. As part of that initial alignment, JICWEBS merged its anti-fraud efforts into the TAG Certified Against Fraud Program and encouraged its members to adopt the TAG Certified Against Malware and Certified Against Piracy Programs.
“This merger will ensure that companies around the world and across the supply chain can focus their efforts on a single trusted set of self-regulatory standards that address fraud, malware, piracy, and brand protection,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG. “From Manhattan to Manchester, Madrid to Macao, and Mumbai to Melbourne, every company in digital advertising can comply with TAG’s standards.”
“By bringing TAG and JICWEBS together, we are making it easier for every company in the supply chain to adopt the high standards necessary to protect themselves and their customers across the globe,” said Jules Kendrick, CEO of JICWEBS. “Rather than wading through an acronym soup of regional alternatives with differing standards, costs, and compliance requirements, companies can make sure they comply with one set of industry-wide certifications.”
Going forward, the combined organisation will also harmonise the JICWEBS Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) with TAG’s Inventory Quality Guidelines (IQG) Program into a global brand safety certification program.
As part of the merger, the four UK-based trade bodies – the Association for Online Publishing (AOP), the Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB UK), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), and ISBA – the voice of British advertisers – will join TAG’s governing body, the TAG Leadership Council."
Comments