media update’s David Jenkin looks at recent brand safety concerns arising from programmatic buying and how they carry over to print media.

Brands in danger

In February of 2017, a number of the biggest brands advertising on Youtube received a shock. The British tabloid newspaper The Sun revealed in an exclusive that their advertising was appearing alongside extremist recruitment videos. It was a revelation that resulted in some of Google’s biggest advertisers pulling all advertising until the company could give assurance that it wouldn’t happen again.

New York Times CEO, Mark Thompson, while speaking in a panel discussion at Cannes Lions, has since called the state of digital advertising a ‘nightmarish joke’, as reported by Brian Morrissey, writing for Digiday. Rather than blaming adtech specifically, Thompson said the digital media world is too premised on audience buying. However, he does believe that a turning point has been passed in rebalancing towards quality contextual environments and away from audience targeting at all costs. He said that advertisers are learning that “there is a lot more to advertising than perfect targeting,” Morrissey reports.

Christopher Heine writes for Adweek that concerns for brand safety are compounded with issues around bot traffic and outright fraud. The result, Heine writes, is a shift away from real-time bidding (RTB), an environment that offers little transparency or control over where ads appear, and towards programmatic direct (sale of guaranteed advertising between advertiser and publisher), and private marketplaces (PNPs) that offer a greater degree of protection for brands.

The growth of programmatic buying is inevitable in an increasingly automated age; in spite of these risks. The benefits offered from efficient, data-driven automation mean that old manual processes are on the way out – permanently. And while no brand wants to appear alongside dubious content, an automated process invariably means heightened risk of that occurring. The pressure is, therefore, on digital media companies to improve the integrity of their operations. In the meantime, use of a third-party ad verification service is strongly advised, especially in the RTB ecosystem.

Bringing a programmatic approach to print

Automation is also finding its way into media buying for print. Many of the benefits of programmatic translate directly to the print environment: data-driven targeting of readers, efficiency through automated bidding, and the resulting reduction in costs. With it, however, comes a few of the same concerns – primarily brand safety.

Although print provides absolute transparency in terms of where ads appear, a tricky aspect of verification is the process involved in aggregation. This is where a specialised third-party is needed.

Cindy Huber, marketing coordinator for Adclip, an automated ad tracking service for South African and African publications, stresses that ad verification plays a vital role for advertising in print. Adclip provides instant verification of the ad’s placement in relation to the editorial content on the page, she explains, using advanced image recognition technology to track ads automatically.

“In addition to seeing who is advertising when, where, and at what price, you can also capitalise on your highest point of opportunity by immediately knowing when your ad has been published,” she says.

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Interested in reading more about matters affecting brand safety? Read our article Public trust is slipping – how should communicators adapt?

*Image courtesy of Atlantic Training