Yesterday, we wrapped up The Cookie Conundrum: A Recipe for Success, a series of three virtual events hosted by analyst group theCube and sponsored by Quantcast. More than 1,000 brand, agency, and publishing professionals from around the world attended to hear a series of industry experts outline the path toward a world without third-party cookies

Speakers from News Corp, Xaxis, U of Digital, and Quantcast covered everything from the important steps brands should be taking right now to the opportunity to fix bad industry practices, alternatives like FLoC and UID 2.0, and even TikTok dances. Below is a quick recap of some of the event highlights. You can check out the full one-hour session here.

During the event, Xaxis Managing Director Xiao Lin said: “If the cookieless future was a TikTok dance, we’d be dancing right now and at least until next year.” Xiao was discussing his agency’s approach to supporting clients as they experience a learning curve in anticipation of third-party cookies disappearing from online advertising in 2022. “As we’re learning more about this cookieless dance, we’re helping our clients learn the steps of it and also introducing our own moves,” Xiao added. 

Alongside Xiao, other speakers included: News Corp’s Senior Vice President and Global Head of Programmatic Advertising, Christopher Guenther; Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman; Quantcast CTO Peter Day; Quantcast Vice President of Product, Somer Simpson; Quantcast Head of Product Marketing, Shruti Koparkarm; and Shiv Gupta, founder of U of Digital. The event was hosted by theCube’s co-CEO John Furrier.

News Corp’s Christopher Guenther, who is also an IAB board member, hailed the deprecation of third-party cookies as a “long overdue reset” and an opportunity for the industry to “fix bad practices.” 

“It’s going to be quite a ride. That’s an understatement,” he said. “As publishers, we have to be collectively disciplined with what solutions we test out and what we eventually adopt.” Quantcast CTO Peter Day echoed this sentiment: “In these times of massive disruption, there’s always an opportunity to make things better.” 

Shiv Gupta pointed out the flaw in publishers planning to rely on paywalls or logged-in audiences to replace cookies: “Only 5% of internet traffic is authenticated,” he said, before going on to emphasize the importance of transparency when it comes to organizations seeking permission to use consumer data: “We have an existential crisis about identity in this industry. Now, more than ever, people want truth. They want trust.” (You can find additional thoughts on this topic from Gupta here.)

In a one-on-one discussion with event host John Furrier, Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman described the role the company plays in the industry: “Our job at Quantcast as champions of the free and open internet is to help direct money effectively to publishers across the open internet and give advertisers a reliable, repeatable way of accessing the audiences that they care about in the environments they care about and delivering advertising results.” 

Quantcast Vice President of Product, Somer Simpson, touched on the alarmed response from many to the recent announcement from Google that it would not support alternative identifiers in the absence of third-party cookies. “I’ve gone from being a product manager to a therapist because there’s such an emotional response,” she said. 

According to Somer, brands are saying: “It’s not just about delivering ads. It’s about how do I control frequency? How do I measure success?” Publishers are saying: “We’re taking back control and we’re going to stop the data leakage. We’re going to get the value back for our inventory.”

“Both [points of view] are good,” Somer said, “but if [the relationship between publishers and brands isn’t] managed it’s going to be like ships passing in the night.”

You can watch The Cookie Conundrum: A Recipe for Success on demand here.  

Interested in Learning More?

To learn more about the Quantcast perspective on major trends and solutions for the cookieless future, check out In a World Without Third-Party Cookies, What Happens to Advertising on the Open Internet? 

You can also join us for our upcoming webinar, Inside the Quantcast Platform: Planning and Activating Your Ad Campaigns, on May 26 at 9 am PDT / 12 pm EST.