How Marketers are Shaping the Future of Responsible Advertising

Brand Safety: How Marketers are Shaping the Future of Responsible Advertising

In today's digital world of information overload, it's becoming harder for brands to attract and retain customers - and yet more essential than ever. The right strategies can help businesses to achieve this, requiring careful brand management over time.

But brand management is a challenge in itself, especially online where brand safety is becoming a core topic for marketers to address. There are several elements here to consider, ranging from control to ad fraud itself. Let's take a closer look.

Issues with brand safety - control

eMarketer found that 80% of digital display advertising was delivered via programmatic methods. This means that eight out of every ten adverts placed online are placed according to search and social algorithms from giants such as Google and Facebook. Yes, on one hand this may seem like a lightening of workloads for marketing teams, but it also means a far lower degree of control.?

Consider the potential repercussions of having your ad placed next to a brand, cause or personal advert that you would never want to associate with. If there is negative news in the press that day, do you really want your ad placed inappropriately next to it, in a way that will jar or even anger customers? Look at the recent controversy that big brands such as Acer, Nike and Expedia experienced when it turned out their ads were being shown on YouTube for a notorious conspiracy theorist and a far-right website.?

Issues with brand safety - fraud

Other criminal issues are occurring when fraudsters set up mirror accounts for reputable platforms or accounts, and brands inadvertently place their advertising on the mirror account - thus giving it a further sense of authenticity. These accounts then divert to fraudulent sites which are phishing scams or other types of cybercrime, again, damaging the advertising brands who have accidentally walked into a criminal situation. Other issues occur when criminals manage to take over legitimate accounts and do damage to those brands in myriad ways.

It's no surprise that brand safety is now a key priority for brands and the ad agencies that they use. Many are taking on a far more personal degree of responsibility in terms of where their ad content is being placed. The ad fraud economy is believed to be worth $50 billion across the world and the problem is growing.?

This means that brands must be aware of brand safety issues and ready to respond accordingly.?

Steps to take for better brand safety

1. Take it seriously. Many CMOs still don't realise the extent of the problem and may never have initiated a brand safety audit via a partner. This awareness must grow and is the first step to success.

2. Brand safety guidelines must be produced, aligned with a changing business, and made to support a 'digital first' approach that empowers marketers and gives them the tools that they need to market safely and effectively.

3. Brands must move away from current 'basic' advertising platforms and recognise that the brand safety offered through these systems is not sufficient to meet current objectives and goals. Brands must use current and specialist solutions and marketing tools for effective and safe - responsible - online advertising.

4. Brand custodians must be ready to adopt best practices and tackle brand infringement issues where they occur.

5. Be very clear about your brand messaging and the mediums that you use and measure impact carefully.?

The value of trust

Your customers already trust your brand and they must continue to trust it. This means associating your advertising with a platform that maintains and builds your integrity and which is transparent, trustworthy and effective.

Contact Threeps to find out how our responsible platform can help you to be a social, ethical and responsible marketer - without the fear of brand damage and abuse.?

https://www.threeps.media/