As the digital media landscape grows more complex, concerns around transparency, safety, and accountability have taken center stage.
On Day 3 of Goafest 2025, a panel discussion titled ‘Building a Safer, Smarter, Cleaner Media Ecosystem’ unpacked these challenges, with Tejas Apte, Head of Media and Digital Marketing at Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), leading the charge. He emphasised the need for transparency, safety, and effectiveness in digital media.
“Up to 30% of digital impressions may be fake or non-human, leading to major business inefficiencies. Ad fraud, bot views, and data misuse are key threats impacting ROI and trust in digital,” Apte said.
He added, “Legacy media had a balance of ad-funded and subscription models, while digital is predominantly ad-funded, raising the stakes for consumer and brand safety.”
While highlighting ISA’s four media charter pillars, Apte mentioned:
- Safe placements for brands and users.
- Viewability standards to filter fake impressions.
- Fraud prevention across formats and platforms.
- Responsible use of first-party data with proper consent.
Furthermore, he went on to say that collaboration with platforms like Google and Meta helped co-create standardised expectations and metrics.“Agencies and advertisers now have a shared understanding of metrics: input metrics (e.g., clicks) versus business outcome metrics. ISA’s approach is co-created with agencies and publishers, improving trust, clarity, and alignment,” Apte said.
“Automation and AI are transforming agency roles; agencies must move from service delivery to business impact. In-housing is increasing but usually partial; agencies remain vital for creative strategy and planning, he added.
Apte highlighted that the future of agencies lies in evolving their function toward delivering business outcomes, not just campaign execution.
“ISA’s media charter success will be measured by adoption among all advertisers, not just large ones, and a visible reduction in ad fraud and unsafe placements. HUL has applied media charter learnings internally to improve first-party data practices and discovered new media partners through the process, he added.
