"Brands and advertisers are beginning to place more emphasis on the authenticity of the environment where their brands are displayed and the quality of the click, not just the click itself," says Marc du Plessis, joint CEO of SPARK Media and head of the Publisher Council for Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) South Africa. "Brand safety is becoming increasingly important." 

"We have a direct relationship with all publishers of the more than 100 websites that we represent, serving almost 15 million page views and seven million unique visitors each month. SPARK Media’s Local News Network’s (LNN) websites offer brands a safe environment," he says.

"These secured sites are trusted sources of news for local communities and have an established journalistic network of more than 400 people on the ground that are often first to break local news," he adds.

Brands that advertise on LNN through premium inventory are able to talk to a niche audience via location-specific advertising that is relevant to them. In addition, SPARK Media is a member of the Press Council and subscribes to and endorses its code of ethics and conduct.

SPARK Ignition, its programmatic solution, offers targeting by age, gender, geographic location, language, and lifestyle categories. For example, if marketers are looking to engage with golfers that earn in excess of R50 000 per month and live in Pretoria, SPARK Ignition's publisher’s demographic and interest-based data can determine the correct online sites to reach those golfers. 

"We offer a brand safe environment with private, protected, owned inventory. Our technology can turn off adverts that feature next to breaking news that could impact on advertisers brand identity/safety," says du Plessis. "As an industry, we need to develop firm criteria for evaluating trusted publishers and educate and drive awareness through members of the IAB, publishing partners, and the media." 

For more information, visit www.sparkmedia.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.

media update looked at brand safety concerns arising from programmatic buying.  Read more in our article, Brand safety in programmatic buying: context is everything, whether digital or print.