Adjacency Tips, Tools and Resources for Publishers | Brand Safety Topics

Tips, Tools and Resources for Publishers, Platforms & Solution Providers

publishers Adjacency of ads that are not brand safe can cause reputational damage for media sellers as well as media buyers. This means working to implement and communicate your brand safety and suitability approach to your clients, as well as having a strategy for safeguarding your own properties and brands.

For technology solution providers such as verification services, staying ahead of brand safety and suitability issues adds tremendous value to maintaining trust in the media supply chain.

In all these cases, adhering to principles of brand safety and suitability and keeping current with developments in the space is critical to the health of your business.

Tip #1: Commit to brand safety and suitability training and education

Many media buyers will ask who your Brand Safety Officer is and how you train your teams

Tip #2: Clearly articulate your commitment to meeting the brand safety and suitability expectations of your clients

Create the policies and tools needed to honor your brand safety and suitability obligations

Identifying, Preventing, and Addressing Adjacency Issues

These best practices for brands, ad tech, and publishers will jump-start your brand safety practice and help you avoid problems caused by undesirable ad adjacencies!

Tip #3: Know your partners

Publishers and platforms have a responsibility to know which companies are part of the media supply chain they may be using to monetize their content, and how those entities resource and prioritize brand safety and suitability controls. You can ask them who their Brand Safety Officer is and if they have been certified.

Tip #4: Develop an internal brand safety and suitability playbook

Have a plan for avoiding ads that are inappropriate for your media property and what steps you’ll need to take in the event it happens.

BSI has the tools to help you master your brand suitability challenges.

Industry Resources

Created collaboratively by leaders across the media and marketing ecosystem, these industry standards and explainers can help you with your brand safety and suitability efforts:

Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework
Ensure that your publisher and platform partners are compliant with the Brand Safety Floor. Determine your risk tolerance level for all content categories by brand, include those in your media plans and insertion orders, and continually monitor and update your preferences.

Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) Adjacency Framework
Use this guideline to understand what adjacency means by media channel and format

Media Rating Council (MRC) Supplemental Guidance on Content Level Context and Brand Safety Ad Verification
GARM’s Brand Safety Floor is incorporated by reference into these technical standards used to audit and certify the tools used by practitioners of media buying.

Ad Adjacency and Brand Suitability