46% of Swiss digital ads are placed on sites with image or security problems
For this study, carried out in the first half of 2020 by the associations IAB Switzerland, Leading Swiss Agencies (LSA) and the Swiss Association of Advertisers (ASA) in cooperation with zulu5, over one million national and international websites potentially damaging to brands were analyzed. It was found that in the first half of 2020, 46% of the top 100 Swiss advertisers placed ads in digital environments whose association could be considered harmful to the respective brand.
Brand safety is a highly relevant topic for these advertising associations. In July, they published a white paper aimed at creating a uniform understanding of the terms used in brand safety. The new report distinguishes between legal safety (i.e. advertising environments that violate the law or advertising guidelines) and brand suitability, which refers to brand-specific safety requirements. During the first half of 2020, zulu5's indexing robots used an "outside-in" approach to scan the internet and comb through websites in order to audit them and identify which ads appeared on potentially brand-damaging sites. The analysis showed that while many brand-critical cases were recorded, 54% of brands had little or no exposure.
Analysis of different industries revealed that the leisure industry (including gaming) was most at risk of placing its digital advertising in brand-critical environments, followed by charities and social platforms, government-related organizations, religious/spiritual organizations and education/training. In general, it has been observed that advertisers re-running ads in the digital space, driven by the possibilities of Covid-induced changes in consumer behavior, run a higher risk of placing ads in brand-critical environments than established digital advertisers.
In general, it's worth noting that progress has been made since 2017 in reducing fraudulent exposure due to international pressure on major advertising platforms (including YouTube and Facebook). However, the issue remains an ongoing challenge in Switzerland too. That's why advertising associations will continue to report regularly on the brand safety situation through the transparency initiative. The aim should be to achieve 100% brand safety, which requires the active cooperation of all stakeholders.
Article courtesy of cominmag,ch
At Mediamix, we pay particular attention to the quality of the environment in which our customers' messages are broadcast. It's an essential groundwork that we enrich on a daily basis.
