LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS AMERICAS 2018: Dominique Delport, international president of media company Vice Media (pictured, right), acknowledged the appeal of personalisation, but argued programmatic content and advertising systems are problematic because they deprive viewers of content unfairly deemed “unsafe”.

The executive noted: “every telco operator is rediscovering the power and potential revenue around advertising,” pointing to moves from Verizon and AT&T to boost their targeted advertising capabilities. But, Delport said the rise of programmatic models, which target specific audiences and demographics, has given birth to “an advertising moral norm which I totally disagree with”.

He explained programmatic systems arbitrarily block content based on certain keywords, meaning some information, including that “provided by great newsrooms, great journalists with the highest ethical standards, will be skipped from the playground because it’s supposedly brand unsafe”.

“This is not right, this is wrong. We need with the DSP [demand-side advertising platform], with the SSP [supply-side platform] to be much more mature because these topics are the topics that matter to our audience,” Delport said.

“Telco can play a big part in redefining what advertising will be,” he said, adding: “At the end of the day, advertising is good. It offers free media, free content, and not everyone can pay for content.”