Perhaps the biggest pain point in the newly amended Elections Canada Act, is the requirement to register not only political advertising but also any campaign-related issue ads. Issue ads are defined quite broadly as the transmission of a message to the public during the election period that take a position on an issue with which a candidate or a registered party is associated without identifying the candidate or party in anyway. A recent example of this was on full display last week as environmental groups faced the new reality of campaign-period advertising.
Most Canadian publishers are accepting political advertising through direct channels. However, the amendments have created significant barriers to programmatic buying and selling of media during this period resulting in some not participating in political advertising at all. Regardless of each platform and publisher’s respective policies on political ads, the key to delivering on them successfully rests in the ability to identify issues in close to real time in order to react accordingly.
IAB Canada has been working with its members to develop a database solution that will help lessen the burden on the industry and provide visibility into election issues as they arise. In partnership with Canadian Press, IAB Canada is pleased to deliver a subscription-based database that can be implemented by ad tech over the campaign period that will provide the necessary information to aid in compliance.
The IAB Canada solution identifies campaign issues, tracks which party initially raised them, creates a comprehensive list of keyword tags and domains related to the issue as well as tracks NGOs and other third-party players.
This solution is one of the many resources that we had discussed developing with Elections Canada and we are looking forward to continued wide spread adoption.
The tool launched this week and is available for subscription. Please contact [email protected]