Taking Responsibility for Brand Safety and Suitability

Programmatic networks have experienced several brand safety crises, with the most notable being the "advertiser revolt" on YouTube in the spring of 2017. Despite these events, brands continue to find their messaging placed on fake news sites and alongside unsuitable content, often without their knowledge.

A recent report from NewsGuard revealed that brands spend $2.6 billion annually funding misinformation sites. This raises the question: What are brands doing to ensure their programmatic advertising efforts do not inadvertently cause harm?

Keyword Blocklists Aren’t Enough Anymore

Brands generally do not want to support misinformation or highly inappropriate content. However, programmatic advertising makes it difficult for brands to fully control or review ad placements, as these are often determined by algorithms. At the same time, brands seek targeted advertising at scale.

For years, keyword blocklists have been used to mitigate brand safety risks. However, the limitations of this approach became especially apparent in the past year. With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, COVID-19, political elections, and increased attention on climate issues, ad buyers realized that a more nuanced process was needed. Simply banning certain words like LGBTQ+, BLM, or Trump could result in defunding legitimate media—media that customers might actually want to see their brand associated with.

Companies such as DoubleVerify, Quantcast, and Comscore have advanced their brand safety and suitability features. Still, relying solely on ad tech tools is insufficient.

Last year, thousands of top brands—including Pepsi, Starbucks, and Comcast—purchased programmatic ads that ended up supporting COVID-19 misinformation. Even recently, brands like Ikea, The Open University, and Ovo Energy discovered their ads were published on media channels unsuitable for their brands.

Ensuring brand safety and suitability is the responsibility of every link in the programmatic supply chain. It is also beneficial to look beyond ad tech for additional support. For example, NewsGuard is a media vetting tool that rates the credibility of news and information websites. Publishing an ad on a public health article in the New York Times is likely suitable for most brands, while placing the same ad on a site like Breitbart may not be ideal. NewsGuard helps brands identify credible publishers.

Building trust with customers is essential for business success. Programmatic advertising can be a viable way to achieve this, but only if brands, agencies, and platforms take responsibility for brand safety proactively, rather than reacting after a crisis.