Undoubtedly, this year has rocked the digital advertising industry. The pandemic has skyrocketed the growth of digital environments such as video streaming, the use and abuse of third-party data has propelled a privacy revolution and contextual solutions [/contextual-insider/contextual-articles/why-contextual-solutions-matter-right-now] have gained global traction in a dangerously close, post-cookie world.
How are marketers going to deal with this change and still deliver meaningful outcomes for their clients? Lane Schechter, Senior Product Manager at GumGum sat down with Temese Szalai of Subtextive, Alexis Sandler of PMX and Chris Vargo of SocialContext at the IAB Tech Lab Summit for a discussion on brand safety, data protection and building a safe and transparent programmatic supply chain for the next generation of digital ads.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the panel:
Brand safety versus brand suitability
As providers, marketers must do our part to put in a nuanced effort to distinguish which content is suitable for our clients. While content may not post a binary safety floor violation, it is integral to understand the context of a page to make sure it is suitable and aligns with a brand’s message. Therefore, instead of using blunt safety tools, safety providers need more surgical precision when it comes to determining the safety and suitability of content they wish to advertise against.
Setting brand safety benchmarks
How can marketers build trust in their brand safety solutions? The cornerstone of developing trust is determining shared data points that we can calibrate against and then providing benchmarks towards those. As the world continues to digital, marketers are working with a global landscape across different languages and cultures, so setting up benchmarks that are both reasonable and transparent is the first step in gaining client and consumer trust.
Determining risk levels
Although brands often pull their content from pages during times of uncertainty, it is important to set up a long-term approach to how brands approach the level of risk they are willing to take when placing ads within online content. One long-term strategy to determine the key values, core beliefs and social positions of each brand and identify the target audience. This foundation will then help to inform decisions for the brand when it comes to which content is risky, and which is safe.
Click here for an on-demand live recording of the event.
