Impartial demand-side platform The Commerce Desk has carried out the new digital video protocol launched by the IAB Tech Lab in March, an endorsement that would spark industrywide uptake and place the corporate as a catalyst of change inside the ecosystem. 

However a scarcity of readability surrounding key parts of the transition, equivalent to when it is going to happen and the way dramatically it may have an effect on video revenues, has left some publishers anxious.

The brand new updates concern the classification system that consumers and sellers use to label and transact on digital video stock, a channel whose whole advert spend is projected to extend 17% in 2023 to $55 billion, in accordance with the IAB 2022 Video Advert Spend & 2023 Outlook report.

The brand new protocols—which add two new tiers, accompanying and interstitial content material, to the usual in-stream and out-stream taxonomy—have been welcomed as a helpful improve for the ad-tech ecosystem, as they may present media consumers with extra transparency into the form of video stock they’re bidding on, in accordance with interviews with specialists. 

Nevertheless, by including new tiers to the present hierarchy, the specs additionally threaten to cut back the income that publishers generate from their video stock. Beneath the brand new system, many publishers’ video stock will qualify as accompanying content material, slightly than true in-stream video, netting them decrease yields.

“In case you are a writer, this seems like a sudden change that has the potential to be significantly disruptive for our income projections,” mentioned a director of advert operations. “This modification must occur, however I want there weren’t a lot uncertainty.” 

In changing into the primary DSP to publicly embrace the brand new protocol, The Commerce Desk has signaled to the trade—in addition to to its company and model purchasers—how critically it plans to take the updates.

The transfer additionally positions The Commerce Desk as a strong supply of enforcement inside the ecosystem, because the IAB Tech Lab usually depends on the assist of an authoritative demand-side accomplice to remodel its insurance policies into apply, mentioned Chris Kane, founding father of programmatic advert consultancy Jounce Media.

“It takes the IAB to construct a regular after which it takes some massive, highly effective ad-tech firm to drive adoption,” Kane mentioned. “For video-placement definition, that massive firm is The Commerce Desk.”