Ad-ID is the advertising industry standard unique identifier for all commercial assets airing in the United States similar in concept to the
UPC barcode used on retail products. Previously the industry used the
ISCI system until 2003. Ad-ID is used to assure that the correct assets are delivered to the media by providing a central source for identification. It is mostly used for
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
and
radio advertisement
In the United States, commercial radio stations make most of their revenue by selling airtime to be used for running radio advertisements. These advertisements are the result of a business or a service providing a valuable consideration, usually ...
s but has been gaining traction online and in print.
There is an equivalent code in France called ARPP.TV which also is the French industry standard unique identifier for all ads (and is based on ISCI
).
Critical information about each ad and campaign is managed with Ad-ID. Details of the ad, what media the ad will be used in, clearance status, usage restrictions, related executions, and other vital information can be accessed by authorized users.
Origin
Ad-ID was developed by the
American Association of Advertising Agencies
The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) is a U.S. trade association for advertising agencies. founded in 1917. It serves over 700+ member agencies across 1,300 offices, which control more than 85% of total U.S. advertising spend.
...
and the
Association of National Advertisers
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) represents the marketing community in the United States. Its headquarters is in New York City and it has another office in Washington, D.C. ANA's membership includes over 600 companies with 25,000 b ...
, Inc., (ANA), Ad-ID uses the
TV standard,
ISCI commercial coding system in its monetization model. The ISCI code is an 8 character alphanumeric code (four alpha prefix followed by four numbers) in use since 1970. The prefixes were licensed and centrally managed and the complete ISCI codes were manually created and not stored in a central repository.
Ad-ID uses
ISCI codes that are a basic 11 digits in length,
(a set of four and set of eight alphanumeric characters) plus an optional 12th (to indicate HD or 3D). The first four
alphanumeric
Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric ch ...
characters are an identification prefix licensed to a particular company.
[{{Dead Youtube links, date=February 2022] Ad-ID generates
ISCI codes through a secure, Web-accessible
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
.
Technology
The Ad-ID system uses a web interface and a set of custom
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...
s to manage the system and integrate with customers' systems. The system uses a unique
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
to maximize the use of the 12-character codes.
The Ad-ID system required the last 4 characters of a code to increment from the left to right, and to cycle through numbers and letters.
See also
*
Advertising ID
An advertising ID is a unique user ID assigned to a mobile device (smart phone, tablet computer), or operating environment, to help advertising services personalize their offers.
It can be sent to advertisers and other third parties which can use t ...
, a unique user identifier tied to a mobile phone to track consumers habits and to pass data across apps for advertising purposes
* Apple's
Identifier for Advertisers
Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) is a unique random device identifier Apple generates and assigns to every device. It is intended to be used by advertisers to deliver personalized ads and attribute ad interactions for ad retargeting. Use ...
(IDFA)
External links
Official website
References
Advertising industry
Unique identifiers