IAB Unites the Digital Advertising Industry at its New In-Person Event, Audience Connect, and Brings Together the Most Innovative Brands and Businesses at Brand Disruption Summit

NEW YORK, July 19, 2022 – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the digital media and marketing trade association, today announced its lineup of thought leadership events for the remainder of 2022, along with initial details around its Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) taking place January 22-24, 2023. These events are aimed to highlight the most meaningful opportunities and most pressing challenges facing the industry. They will identify solutions to address these issues, and create an agenda to which organizations can hold themselves accountable and take action.

“IAB events are designed to stimulate and drive action. Over the coming months our events portfolio will be addressing key issues around data and technology, enabling marketers to find the right audiences, engage consumers, measure, and optimize in a rapidly changing advertising ecosystem,” said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. “The next 12-18 months will be highly dynamic, as we manage change across many dimensions: pending regulation, the economy, a shifting political landscape, war and rising geo-political tensions. Our events are designed to tackle the most pressing issues head-on.”

This year, a new event is joining the 2022 lineup titled, “IAB Audience Connect: Find. Engage. Measure. Optimize.” Audience Connect programming is carefully curated to help agencies and brand marketers understand their audience holistically, build long-term, cross-channel strategies, and identify partners that offer scalability.

IAB Audience Connect: Find. Engage. Measure. Optimize. Taking place on September 13-14, 2022, IAB Audience Connect is a two-day in-person event held in NYC. Additionally, main stage presentations will be live-streamed exclusively on IAB.com. Media executives and marketers will learn how to successfully leverage data and technology in a privacy-compliant manner in order to find the right audience, engage consumers, measure, and optimize in a rapidly changing advertising ecosystem.

​This year’s presenters will showcase various solutions to scale and effectively market to target audiences from leading executives including Jonathan Stringfield, VP, Global Business Research & Marketing, Activision Blizzard, Lynn Schlesinger, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Forbes, Mark Donohue, VP, Gap Inc, General Manager GPS Media, Gap, Johanna Bauman, Chief Marketing Officer, PubMatic, and more.

On September 13th, during IAB Audience Connect, IAB will release the second part of its 2022 State of Data report, focused on how brands, agencies, and publishers are approaching addressability and first-party data in preparation for the loss of third-party cookies and identifiers.

IAB Brand Disruption Summit (BDS): BDS is back in-person this year in NYC on October 11-12, 2022, bringing together the world’s most innovative brand executives and business leaders to share stories of how they’re navigating through a new era of chaos and disruption, while charting new paths for growth.

Now in its fifth year, speakers and presenters will give an inside look at the way forward-thinking brands are reevaluating their business strategies for the privacy-driven digital ecosystem, engaging the post-COVID consumer, making the investments in emerging tech, and fostering talent—both human and automated.​

This year’s theme, “Navigating the Now,” addresses our industry’s need for immediate change, growth, and high-level decision making. BDS is an opportunity for marketers to learn and hear stories of practical innovation and solutions from leaders including: Tehmina Haider, Chief Growth Officer, Harry’s Inc, Yakir Gola, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, GoPuff, Oliver Chen, Managing Director, Retail, New Platforms, Luxury Sector, Cowen, Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, Founding Partner, Hannah Grey VC, and Renaldo Webb, Founder, PetPlate, and more.

Additionally, during BDS, IAB will release its annual Brand Disruption research: The Evolving Consumer Ecosystem and a new report titled Brand Disruption: Consumer Study.

IAB ALM: The 2023 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting will be in a brand-new location – Marco Island, Florida on January 22-24, 2023. Leaders from across the digital ecosystem will gather to discuss our industry’s most important issues and set the agenda for the year to come.

ALM 2023 will build off the momentum we created in 2022 to take action and to be held accountable. The industry needs to address the regulatory environment that we operate in and solve the challenges impacting our businesses — privacy, identity, addressability, and measurement.

The industry is at an inflection point with greater headwinds, familiar and unfamiliar challenges, and an array of new opportunities. ALM’s theme, “It Starts Here” will gather and challenge the digital industry to get off the sidelines and drive progress as we debate hot topics including brand activation in the metaverse, programmatic and cross-channel measurement, the new era of streaming, brand safety, privacy, the ins and outs of the creator economy and optimizing creativity for the future of gaming, and more.

“This year, ALM was a great success bringing the industry back together for in-person events and it set the stage to tackle the industry’s biggest challenges of currency, measurement, and privacy-enhancing technologies. At ALM 2023, IAB will lead the industry into a new era. Re-inventing the rules and identifying new opportunities, while advocating for change, we will arm attendees with the ideas, insights, and connections needed to plan successful marketing strategies for 2023 and beyond,” added Cohen.

More information and updates regarding IAB’s events can be found at: www.iab.com/events.

About IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership comprises more than 700 leading media companies, brands, agencies, and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies, and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, IAB develops technical standards and solutions. IAB is committed to professional development and elevating the knowledge, skills, expertise, and diversity of the workforce across the industry. Through the work of its public policy office in Washington, D.C., the trade association advocates for its members and promotes the value of the interactive advertising industry to legislators and policymakers. Founded in 1996, IAB is headquartered in New York City.

IAB Media Contacts
Kate Tumino / Brittany Tibaldi
212-896-1252 / 347-487-6794
[email protected] / [email protected]