Delta, Kellogg join IBM pledge to fight bias in online ad targeting

Criteo SA (Pre-Reincorporation)

20/06/2022 14:00

By Paresh Dave
    OAKLAND, Calif., June 20 (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc
 DAL.N , Kellogg Co  K.N  and several big ad agencies on Monday
pledged to counteract unwanted biases in the algorithms that
power their online advertising.
    The action, announced as part of an ad industry conference
in Cannes, France, is one of the biggest steps taken to ensure
stereotypes related to gender, race and other characteristics
are not unfairly deciding to whom an ad is shown. 
    Growing use of automated software to buy ads, greater
attention on diversity and the looming risk of scrutiny from
consumer protection regulators has brought urgency to the issue.
    The advertisers and agencies will use algorithms and
guidance from IBM Corp  IBM.N  to identify skews in audiences
for ads and balance them out. IBM began testing the tools
internally a year ago.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2O42DJ They are free, but likely
will require added staffing to deploy.
    Advertisers acknowledge that tweaks could mean fewer clicks
for some time, but that being more inclusive eventually will
increase sales. 
    "Anything we can do to champion greater equity has huge
business impact," said Shannon Womack, director of U.S. brand
marketing at Delta.
    In a test, WPP Plc's  WPP.L  Mindshare agency found an
unnamed goods company would direct online ads to mostly women
because female buyers were more common. Mindshare determined
fairness could be improved by six times on a measure of
disparate impact by including more male viewers, with the margin
of error on predictions related to buyers widening by under two
percentage points.
    "We can start to break the cycle of some long-held beliefs,"
said Adam Gerhart, global chief executive of Mindshare, which
counts IBM as a client. "The biggest determinate [of becoming a
buyer] may not be your gender but your role in a household or
other characteristics."
    Agencies Dentsu Group Inc  4324.T  and Publicis Groupe SA
 PUBP.PA  and ad tech companies Criteo SA  CRTO.O  and Magnite
Inc  MGNI.O  also signed the pledge, IBM said.

 (Reporting by Paresh Dave, Editing by Louise Heavens)
 ((paresh.dave@thomsonreuters.com; 415-565-1302;))