Avoiding Overcorrection: Balancing Brand Safety

Posted by Victor Z Glenn • Sep 23, 2024 8:00:00 AM

The conversation around brand safety has become more urgent, with advertisers increasingly concerned about where their ads appear as we near the election cycle, and there is a rise in deep fakes and polarizing content. Many marketers, wary after high-profile controversies, are practicing extreme caution in this environment relative to associating their brands with harmful or controversial content. However, this shift raises a new concern: the potential to be overly conservative in inventory choices, distancing themselves from credible news or important topics while struggling to manage reputational risk.

Brand safety once meant protecting against harmful content, but today it’s often applied more broadly to avoiding “hot button” topics - including legitimate news reporting on issues like politics, public health, and social movements. This has led to a situation where important journalism is penalized or demonetized simply for covering significant global events. The result is a problem around the sustainability of news for outlets and for advertisers who may miss valuable engagement with harder to find audiences.

What the industry needs now is a more balanced approach. Rather than retreating from credible news and content, advertisers should leverage the tools they already have such as the journalism evaluation tools as well as contextual targeting and attention metrics, to ensure their placements are safe without limiting their reach. The goal should be protecting brand integrity while supporting valuable content and context – and supporting a free and dynamic democracy. Reviewing and refining existing tools can allow for smarter, more nuanced decisions, ensuring that digital marketing remains effective, both for brands and their media partners.

While it's crucial to avoid overcorrecting by pulling ads from important and credible content, striking the right balance is key to protecting both brand reputation and the integrity of the media ecosystem. By continuing to refine and improve our brand safety measures—advertisers, platforms, and media partners can work together to create a more responsible, transparent, and effective digital landscape. With collaboration and thoughtful action, we can build a future where brand safety and meaningful engagement coexist, benefiting everyone involved. 

Topics: Brand Safety, Brand Reputation, Ad Adjacency, Brand Suitability, Marketers, Metrics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Media, education, News, contextual advertising, multimedia, journalism

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