Political advertising transparency platform announced by Canadian advertising coalition

Toronto, Canada – The Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC) is launching a platform to make it easy for political advertisers to meet new transparency requirements in the Canada Elections Act.  

“Having a common system for political parties and third-party advertisers will raise Canadian’s awareness and understanding about the ads they are seeing,” said Julie Ford, DAAC’s executive director.

When people hover their mouse over ads with DAAC’s purple “Political Ads / Pub politique” wordmark/icon, the information required under the Elections Act will appear in an overlay box.

“Our approach preserves space for the advertiser’s message and images,” Ford noted. “As an added benefit, if advertisers need to update their information, they can change it once on our platform, and all of their ads will reflect the new information.”

The program is open to political parties and to third-party advertisers registered with Elections Canada. Participating advertisers receive a license from DAAC, which remains active for four years or until the next federal election is called. This enables advertisers to comply during by-elections until the next general election.

Costs to participate are $7,500 for political parties and $750 for independent candidates and third-party advertisers. Participating in the DAAC’s Political Ads Program is an election expense subject to the spending limit.

The platform will be open as of June 30, 2019.

About DAAC

The Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC) is a consortium of Canada’s national advertising and marketing associations. It was created to provide a robust and credible program for responsible online interest-based advertising. It’s main program, YourAdChoices.ca,  provides a blue triangular in the corner of ads that can be clicked or tapped to see who posted the ad and enables people to opt out of receiving a specific type or series of ads.