New Study Underscores the Importance of Brand Safety

Ad adjacency to brand unsafe content is highly damaging to a brand’s image, leading to a decrease in conversions and sales. Recent research again confirms that brand safety is crucial for brands.

The survey research was conducted by GroupM and involved thousands of consumers from different countries. It provided insights into people’s concerns about digital marketing and gave noteworthy considerations for marketing professionals.

Sixty-four percent of consumers stated that that they form a negative opinion of a business or brand whose ads appear adjacent to any sort of inappropriate content. Digital ads were regarded as being of a highly intrusive nature by thirty-seven percent of the participants.

Seventy-five percent of the participants said that it is the duty of the digital platforms to prevent inappropriate content. They stated that marketers should do all that is required to ensure the setting up of appropriate parameters for the placement of ads for effective and brand-safe advertising.

The study revealed that the level of people’s trust in digital marketing is low, and for a brand, its brand value is highly dependent on trust. Brands should help create a digital marketing ecosystem that does not weaken the trust of consumers, and take effective steps to ensure ad adjacency to only brand-safe and suitable content.

The findings of Group M’s research are consistent with the findings of a survey conducted by the Brand Safety Institute. In that survey, ninety percent of the respondents stated that it is very or somewhat important for marketers to make sure that their ads do not get placed next to any type of inappropriate content. More than eighty percent stated that they would reduce or completely stop buying a product if its ads appear next to any extreme or dangerous type of content. Ninety percent stated that they would reduce their expenditure on a product whose ads appear against terrorist recruiting videos. Sixty-seven percent said they would not at all buy that product.

For ensuring a brand-safe environment, most of the marketers still make use of traditional brand safety solutions, which involve keyword-based content blocking and whitelisted channels. The use of these solutions leads to content under and over-blocking and kills reach.

AI-powered contextual brand safety solutions have surfaced in the market that can comprehend nuances in the context in both textual and visual content. They not only provide a fully brand-safe environment but also ensure brand suitability. These new solutions fully overcome the limitations of conventional approaches.

With AI-powered YouTube brand safety solutions, marketers can heavily promote their products and services on the world’s largest video hosting platform, i.e., YouTube, without any fear of ad placement against unsafe or unsuitable content.   

As more and more research studies emphasize the importance of ad placement in a brand-safe and suitable environment, the timely use of effective brand safety approaches has become indispensable for brands.