In this DTC age, the supply chain has expanded, with most brands now working directly with technology partners and media partners, or even going directly to consumers with in-house developed content.
As an industry, there is much opportunity for collaboration between media and publishing agencies, where brand safety is a clear mandate for all.
The uncontrollable proliferation of content generated on the Internet has brought with it huge issues surrounding trust and truth, which can seriously undermine the relationship between consumers and brands.
No trust equals no data, which equals no brand. A brand without trust is just a product, so brand safety is vital for brand sustainability. We need to take action now before ‘viewers stop viewing, advertisers stop advertising and publishers stop publishing'.
IAB aims to create a more brand safe, fraud-free Internet environment by demanding brand safety from all publishers. The 2018 IAB conference highlighted how important it is for brands to only partner and invest in responsible platforms and publishers, with a responsible approach to supply chain.
It calls on brands to take action on issues in the digital supply chain. One example is global brand giant Unilever, who warned Facebook and Google that it could pull its digital ads if these platforms don’t do a better job of monitoring objectionable content and fake news.
Unilever vowed to work with these platforms to collaboratively find solutions. Unilever has now also partnered with IBM to use blockchain technology (distributed ledger technology) in the media to ensure that they solve the transparency and trust issue.
SPARK Media has a direct relationship with all publishers of the more than 100 websites that it represents, serving almost 15 million page viewers and 7 million unique visitors each month. Its Local News Network’s (LNN) websites offer brands a safe environment.
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.
SPARK Ignition SELL, the company's programmatic sell-side solution, offers hyper-targeting by demographics, location and interest categories. It also offers advertisers a brand safe environment, with private, protected and owned inventory. Its technology allows the company to exclude adverts that feature next to breaking news that could impact on advertisers’ brand identity/safety.
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.
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