In a tweet yesterday 8 November 2018 Ireland's Interactive Advertising Bureau IAB Ireland announced that it will open membership to brands in 2019:

"Very excited to welcome Brand Members on board in 2019. For more on this opportunity for brands to grow & share knowledge as well as drive digital effectiveness reach out to us @iabireland"

Intent is to "...facilitate brand members providing input in respect of IAB’s initiatives and outputs ensuring that they align with their needs and expectations..."

From IAB Ireland, regarding its broad objectives:

"IAB Ireland will champion the growth of digital advertising’s share of total marketing spend thereby enabling its members to grow their revenues and build their brands. As the trade organisation representing the digital media owners and agencies in Ireland it will educate and inform marketers as to the best role for digital advertising in building the value of their businesses. It will work closely with the advertising industry to meet the needs of their clients."

IAB Ireland doesn't publish its membership dues on the website. But per the IAB Global Network website https://www.iab.com/iab-membership/ - where there's no mention of a brand membership category - annual dues for General and Associate members start at US$10,000.

Bringing brands - that is, the people who pay for advertising - under the tent where agencies, publishers, tech and analytics providers, financial institutions, intellectual-property attorneys and everyone else involved in the selling of advertising have been hanging out for years seems like such an obvious idea. Why must the relationship between ad buyers and sellers be adversarial? Why has no one else in the IAB Global Network thought of this? Long overdue.