The7stars has launched a “fully transparent” programmatic advertising platform, Prospero, powered by Hawk.

The platform allows marketers to see across the entire programmatic ecosystem in an attempt to address industry concerns about the lack of transparency in programmatic supply chains.

Rhys Williams, digital lead at the7stars, said advertisers were “rightly concerned” about the state of transparency and added: “Everyone’s got a vested interest in making it opaque, because they’re taking cuts all the way through.”

“Some agencies are doing that and data providers, they’re all taking cuts. They don’t want full transparency because that has an impact on the amount of revenue they’re able to take out.”

In January of this year, PwC, ISBA and the Association of Publishers published a report on the programmatic supply chain, with advertiser participants including Channel 4, Sky and Tesco.

Of the total adspend, only 65% of it reached publishers after applying supply chain costs, which included demand-side platforms, technology and data fees and unknown delta.

Prospero’s offering focuses on premium publishers, such as Ozone, and has a privacy-first data focus.

Williams said the idea was to “strip” the programmatic supply chain back to its essentials.

“Our objective was to minimise fees, minimise use of tech, minimise use of data, and really only use the stuff that adds value. We’re trying to maximise the amount of money that gets spent on working media,” he said.

“We don’t think there’s anything like it in the market.”

They aimed to optimise each stage, and brands have responded well, with launch clients Sofology, Avanti, and Sandals experiencing an average increase of 20-25% in their working spend compared with the PwC report’s benchmarks.

Jennifer Richards, group commercial lead at Hawk, said: “[Prospero] empowers advertisers by allowing them to see under the bonnet of every single technology in the programmatic media trading supply chain, as well as have visibility of every single impression that runs through a campaign. As a result they know the value that’s being added from a data perspective, from a supply perspective, and can then have this verified.”