Capmaign Building Blocks: Pocket Campaigns (jschmid.com)

The ad industry is urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta to withdraw a recent mandate that companies honor the “Global Privacy Control” -- a universal opt-out tool developed by privacy advocates. That mandate, which was announced earlier this month in a frequently-asked-questions response, “will cause confusion for consumers and businesses, rather than effectuating genuine user choices,” the Association of National Advertisers, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Association of Advertising Agencies and other groups say in a letter sent Wednesday to Bonta. California's privacy law gives consumers the right to learn what personal information has been collected about them by companies, have that information deleted, and opt out of the sale of that data to third parties.

Retail print catalogs have often struggled at the expense of digital or online catalogs. As with so many aspects of our lives, the pandemic is causing change and lockdowns are proving that print is still very much a contender. It’s not hard to see why so many catalogs have transferred online. Digital does away with expensive printing and delivery charges and there’s no pulping of old catalogs or waiting around for new ones to be printed. The analytics associated with digital are now incredibly powerful, making it easy to collect large volumes of detailed data on user behaviors. An online catalog is a powerful package, so why is print making a comeback? With another national lockdown upon us, people are being forced to spend a huge proportion of their time at home and home is where print catalogs score. Recent research by Royal Mail revealed that 88% of people surveyed said they paid as much or more attention to mail during lockdown. This means leaflets and catalogs are far less likely to be dumped straight in the trash.

As part of its ongoing efforts to help mitigate greenwashing on Madison Avenue, the Institute for Advertising Ethics (IAE) is exploring the creation of a new industry entity that would help develop common standard and guidelines the ad industry can use to self-regulate the practice. The entity, dubbed “Common Consortium for Greenwashing Prevention” (CCGP) was disclosed in a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission this morning, in response to the commission’s request for public comments to update the agency’s own “Green Guides” for the use of environmental marketing claims, which followed several congressional hearings last last year on the practice of greenwashing campaigns developed by major ad agencies and PR firms for fossil fuel marketers.