State of Ads is the industry connect programme of Blowtrumpet Technologies. Because this programme publishes research produced with people who do not work for us, its editorial rules are stricter than a corporate blog’s, and the independence commitments below are the ones we would most want to be held to.

These sit under Blowtrumpet’s Editorial Guidelines.

1 · Independence, declared every time

The programme is funded and staffed by a company with a commercial position in the market it studies. That disclosure appears on every output. We do not publish research about this industry without saying who paid for it.

What follows from that:

• Research is published whatever it concludes, including when the conclusion is inconvenient for Blowtrumpet. A finding is not withheld, delayed or softened because of its commercial effect.
• Collaborators keep authorship and conclusions. We do not approve findings, request changes of emphasis, or make future collaboration conditional on a result.
• Contributors write under their own names and keep ownership of their work.
• Nothing here is a product claim. Research is not marketing material and is not used as such.

2 · Consent and research ethics

Research involving people runs under the ethical approval of the collaborating institution, with informed consent obtained by the research partner. Blowtrumpet does not receive identifiable data about study subjects.

• Nobody is named, quoted or identifiable in a publication without written consent.
• Consent is specific to the publication and is withdrawable; where it is withdrawn before publication we remove the material, and afterwards we anonymise or withdraw it.
• Community members, event attendees and roundtable contributors are never named or quoted without consent, and closed sessions run under the Chatham House Rule.
• No delegate list, attendee list or contact detail is ever published, shared or used for marketing.

3 · Privacy-first disclosure

Where research or writing here discusses Blowtrumpet’s own systems, the claim is stated exactly: no viewer personal data — not minimised, not anonymised, not collected — alongside the fact that Blowtrumpet is a data fiduciary for creator and business-contact data. Precision on that boundary is a condition of publishing here, including when it makes the claim sound smaller.

4 · Approval and access before publication

Co-authors and named collaborators see the full piece and sign off before it goes out. Organisations described in a study see the passages describing them, with time to respond and a named person to respond to. Anybody criticised in a publication is offered a right of reply, before publication, and it is carried.

Underlying data and method are made available to other researchers on request wherever consent and licensing allow.

5 · Corrections, updating, withdrawal and end of life

Research that cannot be corrected in public is not research.

• Corrections are published on the piece with a dated note saying what changed and why. Nothing is silently edited.
• Substantive errors that change a conclusion are flagged at the top of the piece, not in a footnote.
• Withdrawal. Where a finding does not hold, we withdraw it and publish the reason. The page stays, marked as withdrawn, rather than disappearing.
• Superseded work is marked as superseded and linked to what replaced it.
• Policy, product and design changes. Where a change at Blowtrumpet makes published material inaccurate, the material is corrected or withdrawn — a claim that was true when written and is not true now is still a false claim.
• Regular review. Published research and position pieces are reviewed on a regular cycle.

Requests: editorial@stateofads.com — answered within five working days.

6 · Reuse and republishing

This programme exists to put evidence into circulation, so our default is permissive.

Without asking: quote with attribution and a link; cite in academic and commercial work; reproduce figures and tables with attribution and their caveats intact. Stripping the limitation from a finding is the most common way this work is misused, and we will ask for a correction when it happens.

Ask first to republish a full piece, translate it, or place it behind a paywall. We usually agree, and we ask for a canonical link to the original.

Do not present our work as your own, alter it so its meaning or qualifications change, use it to imply endorsement of you or your product, or republish a piece we have corrected or withdrawn without carrying that notice.

Where a piece is released under an open licence, the licence is stated on it and governs.

7 · Copyright

Contributed work remains its author’s; we hold a non-exclusive licence to publish, distribute and archive it with credit. We publish only material we own or are licensed to use. Claims of infringement go to legal@blowtrumpet.com and the material comes down while we investigate.

8 · Trade marks and brand use

State of Ads is a trade mark of Blowtrumpet Technologies.

Permitted without permission. Truthful, factual reference in word-mark form — reporting, citation, research, comparison — without implying endorsement.

Requires written permission. Logo use in any material; badges or “in collaboration with” claims; use in an event name, organisation name, domain or handle. Describing work as done “with State of Ads” requires a written collaboration agreement.

Never permitted. Altering a logo; confusingly similar names; implying that we endorse, certify or have reviewed something when we have not; or using the programme’s name to lend authority to commercial material.

Attribution: *State of Ads is a trade mark of Blowtrumpet Technologies.*

Permission: legal@blowtrumpet.com

9 · Disclosure in what we publish

Commercial interest is declared, including Blowtrumpet’s. Paid content is labelled as paid, following the Advertising Standards Council of India framework. Method and limitations are published with every finding. AI-assisted analysis is disclosed, and a named human is accountable for every published conclusion.

Contact: editorial@stateofads.com