Brand safety and content

'Brand safety is a set of measures that aim to protect the image and reputation of brands from the negative or damaging influence of questionable or inappropriate content when advertising online.

With the move towards digital marketing, and specifically programmatic advertising, brand safety has become a growing concern for marketers and advertisers, and its importance has increased. Major brands have responded by cutting advertising budgets and pulling their ads off online advertising and social media platforms after finding their ads were placed next to undesirable content.' 

Often misunderstood

Brand safety is an important hot and often misunderstood topic. Explained in a nutshell: some brands avoid YouTube and other social user-generated content platforms to prevent that their content is placed next to extremists. Living out of fear, brand safety measures can limit your reach and disturb the success of a campaign.

Please, do take brand safety seriously, however, do not go overboard. Implement it in the right way and get the specialists on board. If you do spend the time and efforts for the setup, the limitations on your campaigns, brand safety can be negligible.

How to: white and blacklisting

You can control some of your distribution with the ad placements by white and blacklisting complimented by the keyword lists. These are ’living’ overviews. Owned by the brand and are set up together with your agencies and must be updated frequently.

Yes, the obvious porn, cruelty, vulgar, rude, abusive and brutal must be avoided, the details and specifics for your industry, brand, and product are absolutely bespoke. 

Be prepared

It is not a matter of 'if', it is a matter of 'when'. Some day your brand safety will be an issue. And the press will smell a juicy story... Better be prepared for when that sh*t hits the fan. Embed the brand safety in your content team. End responsible is the Editor in Chief, with direct lines to the Crisis Communications management. Read more on Reputation management

You cannot control everything, you can control how you react to it.