Commentary

Global Media Alliance Unveils New Safety, Misinformation Guidelines At Cannes

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a group organized by the World Federation of Advertisers is announcing a series of new guidelines at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today June 21). 

The updates will be revealed and discussed during a panel hosted by GARM on the WPP Beach at Cannes today. 

The coalition of multinational advertisers, agencies and platforms will be releasing guidelines on misinformation, new standards on ad placements, and an outline of first steps to make the metaverse safe for advertising. 

The new misinformation guidelines are in addition to the existing GARM Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework. According to the group, they have been designed to provide a structure for demonetizing misinformation, and to build on the existing framework that has already delivered in changing how brands set strategies, how media agencies build media schedules and how platforms and ad tech partners structure their tools.  

The misinformation guidelines have been developed in coordination with the European Commission and in consultation with NGO partners such as Consumers International, Reporters without Borders, ADL and NAACP. 

“GARM has achieved much in short space of time – more aligned definitions of harmful content, enhanced measures, and the introduction of adjacency controls,” said P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard. “But more still needs to be done. Broadening definitions to include misinformation, introducing adjacency standards and a proactive approach to monetizing the Metaverse are important next steps in ensuring that our brands can safely reach the diverse consumers we serve.” 

As an additional effort, GARM is announcing a new Adjacency Standards Framework to ensure that media placement in safe but sensitive content is done in a more controlled way by advertisers, agencies, and platforms alike. The new framework defines for the first-time minimum standards and an approach for managing ad placement relative to sensitive content within News Feeds, Stories, In-stream Video, In-stream Audio, and Display overlays.  

The goal of these standards is to give ad buyers and ad sellers a common framework to better manage ad placements around content such as death, injury or military conflict, allowing brands to restrict or allow where their messages appear. Further work on delivering similar standards for Livestream formats continues with the initial priority being to define a minimum safety standard for monetization, given abuse of the format in a recent mass shooting in Buffalo, NY.

As to the metaverse, the goal of GARM’s work is to help identify appropriate opportunities in these new environments that bring together content and behaviors.

“We must help the industry understand safety requirements before commercialization begins in the metaverse,” said Rob Rakowitz, GARM Co-Founder and Initiative Lead.

 “We must ensure that advertising is aligned with sustainable and responsible growth models,” he added. 

These new initiatives follow the publication of Volume 3 of the Aggregated Measurement Report, which tracks the progress of all platform members of GARM in delivering against the organization’s eight-key metrics. 

Published earlier this month, the report details measured improvements in performance by the major platforms, including YouTube’s MRC continued accreditation. Since the first report was published in April 2021, the number of platforms covered has risen from seven to eight, with the addition of Twitch. 

GARM was launched three years ago at the 2109 Cannes Lions Festival with 16 founding companies. The organization now has 122 members, including 61 advertisers, 6 agency holding companies, 11 media platforms, 9 ad tech companies and 35 industry associations. 

 

 

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