• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 24, 2023

NBCUniversal, including Peacock, is the latest company to qualify for The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) Brand Safety Certified Seal on a global basis.

TAG, created by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, is a global nonprofit initiative that seeks to build trust, increase transparency, and fight fraud in the digital advertising industry.

TAG currently has 52 members that have the Brand Safety Certified Seal applied globally, according to the organization. TAG also offers anti-fraud and anti-malware certifications.

NBCUniversal parent Comcast was one of the 112 founding members of the brand safety certified program in 2020. The program, which uses an industry-regulated framework to help reduce the risk of ad misplacement in digital media, has become a baseline requirement for some brands and ad-tech partners seeking greater control over campaigns’ suitability.

Global TAG brand safety certification requires an independent audit that includes a review of a company’s digital advertising policies, training procedures, back-end systems, monitoring tools, and content reviews to ensure that all operations meet the required certification criteria, while a regional- or national-level seal can be achieved via a self-certification process.

The brand safety seal across NBCU’s global operations “was the next logical step in ensuring that we continue to uphold our partnerships with a spirit of transparency and trust,” Abrahim Farraj, NBCU’s senior director of brand safety, said in announcing the global certification.

In March, TAG announced that a record 23 companies had achieved its “platinum” status this year by obtaining all three of the organization’s certification seals: Brand Safety Certified, Certified Against Fraud, and Certified Against Malware.

Those companies include AdForm, Amazon Advertising, DirectTV, Google, Index Exchange, Initiative, IPONWEB, Kroger, Magna, Magnite, MediaBrands, MediaMath, MobileFuse, OpenX, Publicis Groupe, Sovrn, Spectrum Reach, SpotX, The Trade Desk, UM, Unruly, Xandr, and Yahoo.

Overall, 228 TAG certified companies earned a total of 317 seals in this latest annual counting period — up from 230 companies earning 313 seals in the 2022 count.

A company’s TAG certification status can be checked on its online registry.