On the heels of new industry
guidelines aimed at curtailing advertising supporting misinformation and other unsavory content, veracity ratings service NewsGuard this morning will announce it is offering free compliance assessment
for brands, agencies, DSPs (demand-side platforms), SSPs (supply-side platforms) and other ad tech providers that want to ensure their current practices meet the industry’s new standards.
The offer follows last week’s announcement by the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) for new brand safety
guidelines designed to avoid ads placed adjacent to content deemed misinformation and/or contributing to self-harm among some users, as well as a European Commission update to its Code of Practice on Disinformation.
NewsGuard will offer the compliance assessments –
as well as provide recommendations to organizations found to be out of compliance with the new guidelines – via its BrandGuard brand safety service free through Sept. 1.
The
assessment includes an analysis of the list of publishers – including websites, news apps, YouTube channels, etc. – each organization currently advertises on and provides a
summary of how well or poorly they meet the new GARM and European Commission guidelines.
GARM’s update, which was unveiled during last week’s Media Lions festival in Cannes celebrating its
third anniversary, provides a framework and sets a “floor” for brand safety recommending advertisers avoid having their ad appear adjacent to misinformation and self-harm content. It also
provided the first industry guidelines for “embedding brand safety” in the burgeoning metaverse/s.
NewsGuard is a human-curated service utilizing professional journalists
to rate the veracity of news and information content, and advertisers and agencies utilizing its BrandGuard service generally use it to create “exclusion” and “inclusion” lists
of sites and apps deemed appropriate for their brands to advertise on.
In research conducted last year with Comscore, NewsGuard estimated as much as $2.6 billion in media buys is
spent on content deemed misinformation each year, due largely to the programmatic marketplace.
“These moves will prevent peddlers of hoaxes from raking in billions — while ensuring
that top brands don’t inadvertently have their ads wind up on websites spouting falsehoods about
COVID-19,
elections, and more,” NewsGuard co-CEO Gordon Crovitz says in a statement
announcing the free compliance assessments.