Brand Safety has been in the spotlight again recently. Concerns over inadvertently landing alongside misinformation over the past intense weeks and months have accelerated actions by media companies to batten down the hatches and protect their environmental integrity.
A significant development on the media supply chain side this week was YouTube’s announcement of their accreditation with the Media Ratings Council, indicating that their streaming video content effectively protects ads from appearing on content deemed inappropriate for paid ads. This was a major undertaking, and a reminder that important changes to improve the supply chain can take time to implement. We look forward to discussing this further with Google in the coming days.
Twitter’s bold move to eliminate highly volatile figures (regardless of celebrity status) from its platform on the premise (in part) of misinformation policies is another example of progress on the brand safety front. The move apparently created an anticipated dip in activity on the platform but more importantly, a massive drop in misinformation was seen allowing advertisers to feel confident about the lowered risk of exposure.
We hope to see continued movement towards brand safety from the supply chain and look forward to discussing exciting new technologies that are addressing the more subtle nuances of brand-safe content like misinformation.
IAB Canada is currently updating its Brand Safety Guidelines and will release them in the coming weeks. We will also be unpacking standards in the coming months as an important piece of the IAB Canada Gold Standard Working group. If you are an IAB Canada member and would like to join these efforts, please reach out to councils@iabcanada.com.