Brand Safety Resources

Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)

GARM Brand Safety Floor and Sustainability Framework

The GARM has developed and will adopt common definitions to ensure that the advertising industry is categorizing harmful content in the same way across the board. These eleven key categories have been identified in consultation with experts from GARM's NGO Consultative Group. Establishing these standards is the essential foundation needed to stop harmful content from being monetized through advertising. Individual GARM members will adopt these shared principles in their operations, whether they are a marketer, agency, or media platform.

GARM Adjacency Standards Framework

Designed to serve as a companion to the GARM Suitability Framework, the Adjacency Standards Framework provides for a common structure in evaluating the brand safety and suitability of an ad placement relative to an ad’s position to nearby content — within specific media formats

4As

4As Brand Safety Floor Framework

The Brand Safety Floor identifies 13 content categories that pose risk to advertisers, whereby advertisers might choose to adopt a "never appropriate" position for their ad buys. The Floor is incorporated by reference into the Media Rating Council's (MRC) final version of its Supplemental Guidance on Content Level Context and Brand Safety Ad Verification.

4As Brand Safety Playbook

Produced in partnership with the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), Brand Safety Institute (BSI), and IAB Tech Lab, the 4A's Brand Safety Playbook is designed to create cohesive guidelines for brand safety across fraud, malware, and content adjacencies, giving marketers the tools needed for safer deployment of digital advertising, and helping brands and agencies devote less time and effort to detect, report, address, and avoid brand safety risks—and more to your core remits of performance and brand building.

4As Brand Suitability Framework

The Brand Suitability Framework details different classes of content within each of the 13 content categories that pose risk to advertisers and assigns risk levels that advertisers can use to determine their own suitability for content, understanding that not all advertisers will have the same view of the risks posed to their brand.

IAB's Understanding Brand Safety and Brand Suitability in a Contemporary Media Landscape

IAB's Programmatic+Data Center convened a working group... to create a brand safety and suitability guide for advertisers, agencies, and publishing professionals. The completed guide outlines concepts, definitions, tools, and transactional applications.

MRC Supplemental Guidance on Content Level Context and Brand Safety Ad Verification

This Supplement is intended to promote enhanced Context and Brand Safety guidance across social media platforms and user generated content, as well as to be used in conjunction with existing guidance as part of MRC accreditation auditing.

GroupM Brand Safety Playbook

Brand safety is a complex, nuanced matter and will continue to evolve in the years ahead. In this report, we aim to look at what the future may hold. We begin with an overview of political, social and technological shifts impacting brand safety at a high level. We then look to specific challenges in five categories currently undergoing rapid transformation: Connected TV, Digital Out-of-Home, Location Data, Audio and Gaming.

WFA Global Media Charter

Advertisers' principles for partnership in the digital media advertising ecosystem.

Publicis Groupe Responsible Marketing and Communication – Key Principles

These Responsible Marketing Key Principles are applied to all forms of commercial communication delivered by Publicis Groupe agencies everywhere. These Key Principles are universal, content and technology neutral. They are aligned with the global Advertising and Marketing Communications Code, established by ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), which are regularly revised through a collegial and international work stream with all stakeholders from the industry and applicable to everyone in the marketing eco-system.

GroupM "Responsible Investment" buying framework

The framework's five focus areas—Brand Safety, Data Ethics, DE&I, Responsible Journalism and Sustainability—signals a new media era where scale serves clients through a commitment to make advertising work better for people.

IPG Mediabrands Introduces Media Responsibility Principles

While "Brand Safety" protects the brand, "Brand Responsibility" protects the communities that a brand serves, weighing the societal impact of the content, the publishers and services, and the platforms being funded by advertising. Mediabrands' MRPs are a call to action for companies to hold themselves to higher standards more broadly when it relates to brand safety and brand responsibility matters, not just in media.