Brand Safety Playbook A Guide to Defending Brands and Consumers Contents Overview • 3 Getting Started • 5 About Your Brand Safety Playbook Partners • 6 The 4A’s and the Advertiser Protection Bureau • 6 Trustworthy Accountability Group • 8 The Brand Safety Institute • 8 IAB Tech Lab • 9 The Playbook: How to Address Core Brand Safety Issues • 10 How to Systematically Address Brand Safety • 11 1. Establish Brand Safety and Suitability Profile • 11 2. Implementation—Structuring Buys and Terms • 12 3. Managing Accountability • 12 4. Evaluating, Optimizing, and Replanning • 13 5. Ongoing Brand Safety Activities • 13 Brand Safety into the Future • 14 Appendix: Sources and References • 15 Reports • 15 Articles • 15 Press releases • 16 Websites • 16 PHOTO BY NICOLA RICCA ON UNSPLASH Brand Safety Playbook • 2 Overview The topic of brand safety is a key issue on adjacencies, and debates about the proper consumer permissions to acti- everyone’s minds. vate targeted messaging. In the last couple of years, we have been witness to “Brand safety” can hold various mean- many incidents that have caused brands and consumer ings to different constituents and their roles in the advertising ecosystem, to pause and question what they are seeing online but generally, the term covers a broad and why. Our industry headlines have been littered range including fraud, piracy, malware, with stories citing fraud and piracy, untenable ad contextual brand safety occurrences, and issues related to consumer pri- vacy and preferences and appropriate consent. (Some also see viewability, shielding marketers from non-viewable exposures, as a brand safety measure, With all marketers, it is simply a but this document does not cover the maturation process. I believe every topic in any detail.) marketer will arrive at the same Numerous efforts and initiatives conclusion that we reached, which have been created within the indus- is Brand Safety is everything. try—crossing advertisers, agencies, If marketers get this wrong, platforms and publishers, ad tech, everyone loses. Brand Safety is a and the industry associations. Each task which is never over, because effort addresses a specific area or it’s dynamic and multifaceted. a range of issues associated with these forms of brand safety. While As such, you need to build an some specific initiatives have made infrastructure that ensures that a huge impact, we as an industry you’re able to respond immediately need to support those initiatives that when something new happens. deliver meaningful progress at scale and provide a more comprehensive —Lou Paskalis, SVP, approach for the industry to undertake Enterprise Customer Engagement, and Investment Executive, Bank of America FROM DEFINING BRAND SAFETY: EXECUTION CHALLENGES, FROM TAG AND BSI Brand Safety Playbook • 3 to keep both brands and consumers This Brand Safety Playbook is here safe. Brand safety should be regarded to help you know how to reduce as a continuous effort across fraud, your overall risk profile in the digital piracy, malware, and content adja- landscape, saving you precious time cencies—at a minimum—to deliver a on these specific issues and, more higher level of advertising assurance importantly, allowing you to focus on in the ecosystem. executional excellence and building of brand response and brand equity. Before going further, you might ask, why continuous? This playbook focuses on the steps advertisers and agencies can take Many forms of fraud and piracy are from the buy side of business and driven by criminals who use the digital encourages the sell side of the supply chain to trick consumers into industry to help close the gap on interactions that earn those criminals brand-safety occurrences. Participa- money. Criminals can then use that Many forms of tion by all players in the industry is money to fund illicit activities around critical to addressing brand protec- fraud and piracy are the world—many of them violations tion at every stage of a campaign. driven by criminals of human rights and personal safety, who use the digital if not plainly offensive content: bad Together, we are better and stronger. supply chain to for people, and bad for business. trick consumers Brand safety is an industry endeavor. into interactions Because bad actors will always find that earn those ways to game the system, we must criminals money. all be vigilant in our quest to manage brand safety as stringently as we can. For more information, see The Hunt for 3ve, published by White Ops, about the discovery of a pervasive malware attack. Brand Safety Playbook • 4 Getting Started Now that we have set the industry goal for brand panacea, a set of focused activities can help keep you above the fray. safety, let’s delve into the steps you can take to increase your goal of brand safety at various points This is why the 4A’s has partnered with the Trustworthy Accountabil- in the digital campaign process. At key points in your ity Group (TAG), the Brand Safety campaign activation processes, you can trigger Institute (BSI), and the Interactive Tech Lab actions to manage brand safety. While there is no Advertising Bureau (IAB) to bring you this industry playbook on brand safety. Although together, these entities can’t solve for all your brand safety needs, each partner provides significant steps for managing brand safety in your campaigns. You will need to add a Media Rating Coun- cil (MRC) Accredited Ad Verification vendor to your mix of solutions, in addition to the whitelists, blacklists, and other methods and layers of assurance you will use to maximize safety across your campaigns for brands and for consumers. RAWPIXEL.COM Brand Safety Playbook • 5 About Your Brand Safety Playbook Partners suicides, gang violence, sexually The 4A’s and the explicit content, and racist opinion Advertiser Protection and comments: completely inappro- Bureau (APB) priate for any advertiser. The time and effort invested in For more than 100 years, the 4A’s has detecting, reporting, addressing, addressed the needs of an evolving and preventing these types of advertising industry. Today, we work adjacencies is enormous, distracting across the industry ecosystem to from the core remit of brand mes- provide guidance and support to our saging and building. Several studies more than 600 member agencies on over the last year indicate that nearly myriad issues impacting agencies and 70% of consumers respond nega- the work they do on behalf of their cli- tively to brands when they appear ents and their hard-earned marketing next to questionable content, and media budgets. driving down the brands’ likability In the last year, we have seen and intent (as shown in the Hearts & contextual brand safety issues play out Science chart below). Some consum- on a very public stage. Marketer ads ers believe brands have made the have appeared adjacent to con- conscious choice to be adjacent tent and videos featuring terrorism, to inappropriate content, suggest- When ads appear next to offensive, hateful, or deragotary content: OMG Rise, The Unreachables Study, Q3 2017, published by Hearts & Science 64% 70% say the brand will not like, recommend, or risks tarnishing purchase the brand if it its reputation appears around such content Brand Safety Playbook • 6 ing a misperception that these adjacencies that are never appropriate adjacencies are in line with brand for advertisers (while acknowledging and company values. Not good for that in some cases, based on the brands, and not good for people. treatment and/or delivery context of (For additional perspective, see the the content, such as a news story or We are delighted to Edelman Trust Barometer or Magna/ documentary, risky content could be bring together IPG MediaLab/Cheq’s study The appropriate to a brand and its values). Brand Safety Effect.) key industry resources This outline led to the development to provide a This is why the 4A’s created the of the Brand Suitability Framework, more comprehensive Advertiser Protection Bureau (APB). applying perceived levels of risk in the This idea surfaced in 2018 at our treatment of content within the dozen approach to industry brand-safety discussion, The content categories. In lieu of specific brand safety. Advertising Assurance Forum, when digital buying guidelines, agencies one member said, “When I’m doing can use this framework as a tool to As the digitization brand-safety checks for my brands, I work with advertisers and publishers/ of media continues see other brands that I know shouldn’t platforms to discuss which content to grow in different be there too. Is there a way I can pick may or may not be right for any up a phone or send an email to tell brand, by category. Each publisher/ exciting directions, the other agency to get their brands platform does not conform directly to so will our need to out of there?” The APB was born in this framework, but most have ways to protect brands and this moment. align to the intent of the document. consumers from bad Since then, the APB has been shar- This is a big step forward in getting actors. This Playbook ing brand-safety issues to get its the industry on the same page—and represents a base- clients away from unsafe content and it’s a start for better contextual brand line on which we will meeting with sellers of media and safety. Our perspectives and capabili- build upon in technology companies that aspire to ties will grow over time. address various brand safety issues. the coming months The APB views these frameworks as In the summer of 2018, the APB and years. living documents that can be revisited decided to partner with the MRC to and refined over time. Moving for- —Louis Jones, draft the Supplemental Guidance on ward, the APB will continue to work 4A’s EVP–Media + Data Content Level Context and Brand with the industry at large to make sure .