The Verification Media Manifesto

Are you human? The most valuable question on the web.

Verification Media is advertising that lives inside the moments where people prove they are human.

Signed by
Luis Di ComoRyan FordCamilo PirilloFernando Vega OlmosIgnacio Zuccarino
About the signatories ↓

The moment nobody wanted

Billions of times a day, the internet stops people to ask the same question: are you human?

CAPTCHAs, one-time codes, authentication prompts, age gates. They keep the web safe. They also interrupt it. Today that moment is pure friction: a cost for the person, a cost for the publisher, and worth nothing to anyone else.

Distorted text
Image challenge
Checkbox
SMS code
Authenticator
Age gate

The attention nobody can prove

Advertising has the opposite problem. Brands pay for attention they cannot confirm. Bots view, bots click, bots scroll. A growing share of what the industry buys was never seen by a person.

One problem, two sides

There is exactly one moment on the web when we know a real person is present and paying attention: the moment we ask them to prove it.

The web spends that moment on traffic lights and blurry letters. Advertising spends billions trying to find it.

Verification becomes media

Verification Media turns that moment into a brand moment. Instead of decoding distorted text, a person makes a clearly human gesture: they select, type, slide, drag or tilt. The gesture proves they are human. The same gesture is an interaction with a brand.

The security is kept. The friction becomes value.

Principles

What we believe

  1. Verification comes first.

    The security job is never weakened to make room for the message. If it does not verify, it is not Verification Media.

  2. Every impression is a human.

    We measure in verified humans, not served impressions. Attention that cannot be proven should not be sold as attention.

  3. Interaction over interruption.

    People are asked to do something they were going to do anyway, in a way that is better than before. Never to sit through something they did not choose.

  4. Respect the moment.

    Seconds, not minutes. No dark patterns, no tricks, no ambiguity about what is being asked.

  5. Proving you are human should not mean giving up who you are.

    The moment collects only what it needs to do its job.

  6. Value for all three.

    The person gets a better moment. The publisher turns a cost into revenue. The brand gets confirmed human attention. If one of the three loses, the model is broken.

  7. Measured independently.

    A category built on proof has to be proven. We welcome third-party measurement and open standards.

  8. Bigger than one company.

    Verification Media is a category, not a product. It will be built by publishers, platforms, agencies, brands and measurement partners together.

Our invitation

That moment deserves better.

The web asks people to prove their humanity billions of times a day and gives them nothing back. We think that moment deserves better, and that advertising deserves to know who it is talking to.

If you publish, build, buy or measure media and you agree, sign this manifesto.

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Every signature is reviewed before it is published. Only your name, role and company are shown; your email and LinkedIn are used to verify your signature and are never published. Data controller: Verad (Ponta Oy, Finland). To withdraw your signature, write to camilo@verad.co. Read the privacy notice.

Founding signatories

Who stands behind this

5 signatories

Luis Di Como

Former EVP Global Media, Unilever
Unilever

Ryan Ford

CTO, Verad. Former Research Scientist, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
VTTAalto UniversityPhD candidate

Camilo Pirillo

Founder & CEO, Verad
Coca-ColaIBMAccenture

Fernando Vega Olmos

Founder, Anita&Vega. Former Chairman, JWT Worldwide Creative Council
Cannes Lions Grand PrixCannes Jury PresidentLoweJWT

Ignacio Zuccarino

CCO, Verad. Former Head of Creative, The Zoo at Google
Cannes Lions GoldGoogleNetflix

Signatories sign as individuals. Affiliations are shown for identification only. Ryan Ford, Camilo Pirillo and Ignacio Zuccarino are part of Verad; Luis Di Como and Fernando Vega Olmos advise Verad.