• by Gary Burtka , Op-Ed Contributor, August 5, 2018

Brand safety — avoiding ads placed alongside inappropriate content, or within an unsafe environment — is one of the advertising industry’s most pressing issues. More than $273 billion in total digital ad spend (per eMarketer forecasts) is at stake, as internet giants try to tame what’s become a “Wild West Web” driven, in large part, by user-generated content.

One vivid example: YouTube videos with scantily clad children and comments from hundreds of pedophiles, surfaced late last year. Global brands advertising alongside those videos included Adidas, Amazon, Deutsche Bank, Diageo, eBay, Mars among dozens of others, as reported by The Guardian.

There’s been “a shift in the force,” so to speak. According to a study by Advertiser Perceptions and Oath released in June, 45% of advertisers think social media sites do a bad job on brand safety, now a top concern among a vast majority (94%) of decision-makers.

An Industry 'Woke' to Brand Safety

In April, the American Association of Advertising Agencies announced a new Advertiser Protection Bureau to tackle the escalating issue. Its end goal is a more holistic view of the industry’s responsibility to consumers and brands to deliver advertising assurance and a solution to the brand-safety crisis.

Emerging Tech to Address Issue

Internet giants are tapping advanced technologies like AI and computer vision to improve brand safety. This can help a travel site like Expedia avoid placing ads next to news about cruise-ship or airplane disasters.

Google recently unveiled a new ad unit for AdSense that uses machine learning via its “Auto Ads” that automatically read a page to instantly detect and place ads that might be most appropriate to place there. Google says that publishers can earn up to 10%  more by using its Auto Ads.

The same AI technology that enables major e-commerce players to recommend visually similar products can be used to avoid websites and content that are deemed inappropriate or alarming.

Urgent Need to Solve Crisis

For publishers competing for ad dollars, the trust crisis is urgent. One prime example is Reddit’s recent drive to get more advertisers onboard. Yet many ad-industry leaders view Reddit as carrying a significant reputational risk.

Currently, Reddit exerts little control on its forums, and Redditors are avid supporters of this laissez-faire approach. Despite recent missteps from Google, Facebook and others, Reddit lags behind others in the urgency and resources being deployed for a fix.

According to a study released in June by Edelman that surveyed 9,000 people in nine countries, 70% percent of respondents expect brands to curb the spread of fake news, and 68% said brands should shield social media users from offensive content.

In a story about the study, CEO Richard Edelman said: “Brands are a new democracy. Consumers see brands as being more effective than individuals fighting for change, particularly around the publication of fake news and offensive content, because they have the power that comes with having ad dollars to spend – or not.”

From a broader societal perspective, the benefits of cleaning up the web’s Wild West are obvious. Its importance for consumers, brands, advertisers and publishers has now heightened to a point where it can no longer be ignored.