With the demise of the third-party cookie, publishers’ first-party data is gearing up to become the latest gold standard for advertisers.

Leading industry authority New Digital Age (covering the latest news, insights, opinions, and research on all aspects of digital media and marketing), recently partnered with audience platform Permutive to launch ‘The Pitch’ – a Dragons’ Den-style contest where market-leading publishers were invited to prove to a panel of agencies that their first-party data offer could deliver campaigns on client KPIs, without the use of any third-party data.

Attending the event were shortlisted representatives from market-leading publishers including DMS (the digital arm of Choueiri Group), Dazed Media, The Guardian, and Hello! All the teams presented their offerings to ‘Dragons’ Caroline Moffat, Digital Director at Starcom; Dan Calladine, Head of Media Future at Carat; Morys Ireland, Head of Data and Technology Services at Mindshare; and Liting Spalding, Head of Audience Planning and Programmatic at Havas.

The publishers were placed through a series of challenges related to every aspect of their solutions in a bid to test their capabilities.

Havas’s Liting Spalding praised all the publishers, saying, “great preparation and presentation, with passion for the technology. They really believed in the products, and it was not just a sales pitch." She went on to state that “agencies are very excited about potential cookieless solutions and it was great to see publishers driving those solutions. It was a great test to see how they would react in those situations – and some certainly rose to it.”

As part of the Middle East’s leading media representation group, Choueiri Group’s DMS was the first to (virtually) step in front of the esteemed judging panel, showing off the data segments they are able to create across the more than 40 web portals they represent.

Commenting on the depth and potential of DMS’s presentation, Mindshare’s Morys Ireland said that “the work to bring together so many publishers and titles across their region was very impressive, it would be great to be able to tap into something like that in the UK. They clearly had the tech infrastructure and data offering and, if we were able to, we would certainly look at following up with them.”

Mathieu Yarak, Group Senior Director – Data & Insights at Choueiri Group, also elaborated on his team’s excitement and stated: “We are happy that we got shortlisted in the Permutive Publisher Pitch Event and that our pitch and capabilities were greatly appreciated by the experts on the judges' panel. In an ever-evolving marketplace, this is a huge achievement for DMS, our entire team, and a win for our advertising partners and clients.”

The judging panel concluded that all contestants proved the promise of their first-party data as a potential new gold standard for audience data. Not only are these publishers able to understand their audiences in real-time but also monetize that data and answer RFPs effectively. This will be vital as brands search for ways to reach their audiences.

“It was great to see that all publishers had a strong first-party story to tell, but even further than that, via technology, that they were able to see and understand 100% of their audience and present privacy-safe insights for advertisers,” said Elizabeth Brennan, Head of Advertiser Strategy at Permutive. “In some cases, they were also able to show work towards specific brand KPIs. It’s going to be an exciting few months as more brands test the power of publishers’ data and capabilities, as they enter a world without third party cookies together.”