MediaMath, one of the industry’s leading DSP’s, is urging marketers not to use “blunt” keyword blocking. As an alternative, it is using the contextual tools of Peer39 to allow marketers to understand the “sentiment” of content, explains Daniel Sepulveda, SVP for Policy and Advocacy at MediaMath.
Through this alliance, the companies expect to expose an additional 30-35 percent of inventory with the contextual tools versus blunt blocking, he says in this interview with Beet.TV
Also seeking ameliorate the impact of blacklisting is Integral Ad Science, which is using machine learning to allow brands to be more “granular” in applying blocking. This according to IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider in this recent interview with Beet.TV
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of brand safety and the use of keyword blocking during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>Last week, Comscore said 22% to 30% of all ad impressions were appearing in coronavirus-related content. Such content is now being widely blacklisted by ad buyers, whose brand safety tools allow them to use keywords to avoid their ads appearing against particular kinds of content. BuzzFeed also reported the scale of the problem.
Even as Comscore offered advertisers a new “epidemic brand safety filter” last week, the IAB and Digital Content Next called on advertisers to cease the practice.
Early in March, a GroupM executive told Digiday: “Less than one third of GroupM’s clients are blocking coronavirus terms, and those that aren’t either don’t advertise against news at all or don’t do a lot of keyword blocking in general”
In this video interview with Beet.TV, John Montgomery, EVP of global brand safety for GroupM, says: “Newspapers are a brand-safe environment in the main, they have high viewability, they have low ad fraud …
“Marketers are so worried about their ads being seen adjacent to the news of the virus. But research shows that people are not turned off brands if they see as adjacent to COVID-19 news.
“Integral Ad Science did some research recently that showed that 78% of people are fine with it. There are some exceptions for food and travel and that makes sense.
“Other research shows that the harder the news, the better. So, research does not support the current marketer concerns.”
Advertisers behavior runs contrary to the audience pattern. News site traffic is spiking up for many publishers.
Even so, the crisis is pushing some newspapers, many of which have been teetering on the brink for years, to the brink of extinction, challenged by inability to print and deliver and by consumers’ inability to get out and buy. Several newspapers and alt-weeklies have announced pay cuts and layoffs, with some shutting down operations altogether, The Hill reports.
Montgomery is worried. “Whilst big media are suffering, it’s a crisis for local news,” he says. “Many of them are not going to get through this.
“This news needs ad revenue. It’s vital at this time to include newspapers and especially local papers on media schedules. Without it, I think we’re in grave danger. This isn’t just about keeping newspapers alive, it’s about free speech and democracy that literally depends on it.”
Closing newspapers won’t just be democracy’s loss, it will be the advertisers’, Montgomery says.
“The fact is that news is a very effective advertising vehicle,” he adds. “Readers are engaged with the articles that they choose to read. They spend longer reading them. There’s more dwell time and that means a better opportunity for your ads to be seen. But readers also trust their favourite local newspaper and that trust rubs off on advertising.”
Facebook has pledged $100 million in grant money and ad spending to help struggling news outlets, WSJ reports.
GroupM’s global business of business intelligence Brian Wieser recently told Beet.TV brands should aim to be useful during the pandemic.
Montgomery is urging advertisers to think differently.
“If you need to use keyword blocking, don’t use it as a blunt tool,” Montgomery says. “Don’t use exact-match (for) ‘COVID-19’ or ‘coronavirus’ exclusions. Because this is automatically going to demonetize all content that contains these words.
“Instead, use something like exclusions (features) which will reduce the possibility of over-blocking things like ‘COVID-19 death’ or ‘COVID-19 death counts’ or ‘coronavirus death toll’ or ‘COVID-19 miracle cure’ or a combination of those words.
“You can work with your agency or verification provider if you need help with a strategy.
“I would say to the verification providers, although they are following the instructions from agencies and marketers have given those agencies guidance about limiting risk in the news environment, make sure that you educate your clients on how to use keywords as a strategic tool rather than a blunt tool.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of brand safety and the use of keyword blocking during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
]]>IAB president David Cohen, who just joined from IPG’s Magna, published an IAB article, How Brands and Agencies Can Save American Lives in The Coronavirus Crisis.
Publishers’ group Digital Content Next has also written a letter to marketers and ad verification companies asking them to exempt premium, trusted media companies from COVID-19 brand safety filters.
A plea to #brands & #agencies: Please don’t block the news! You can save lives & trustworthy news by running your ads next to #Coronavirus & #COVID19 related content. Read more from our new @IAB President David Cohen via @BusinessInsider: https://t.co/oVSP6HrbIG @mrdcohen
— IAB (@iab) March 24, 2020
Brand safety tools have emerged in recent years as a response to situations in which advertisers found themselves placed next to unsavory or unappealing content, typically working by allowing advertisers, through their demand-side buying platforms (DSPs), to blacklist content described by selected keywords.
The practice is rocketing during the coronavirus crisis:
Last week, Comscore announced its own “epidemic brand safety filter”, saying “22% to 30% of all ad impressions are appearing in coronavirus content” – more than “crime and violence” at 2% to 5% – with advertisers asking the company to “protect their brands from some of this unwanted negative content”.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Cohen protests: “News should not be blocked from advertising support. We need the news now more than ever before. That’s our ask.
“There’s a bunch of folks that are keyword blocking anything around COVID-19 or coronavirus or that kind of stuff. News and natural disasters sometimes gets lumped into something that is not ad-supported.
“We believe that a healthy news ecosystem is required for us to save as many lives as we possibly can. We need to support it.”
Brand safety tech companies are openly blacklisting The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for reporting on… COVID-19 (????!!!!). Some are bragging about it, even.
Have they not read our newsletter??https://t.co/aqQfsn8wmz
— Claire Atkin (@catthekin) March 18, 2020
Publishers were already making a similar call before coronavirus exploded. Last year, Beet.TV produced a series, Why News in Today’s Marketplace, in which executives explored how to navigate what has become a charged, negative and sometimes partisan current-affairs landscape.
Vice Media revenue chief’s said brand safety blacklists, which allow ad buyers to filter certain sites out of their demand-side buying platforms, were effectively “censoring” news sites.
GroupM senior advisor Rob Norman said: “The idea that a whole category of content, and eventually almost all of what I would referred to as ‘hard news’, could be determined as bad news … is patently absurd. News organizations can only produce great news if they have great funding.”
Now IAB’s Cohen, talking with Beet.TV, tells advertisers: “Do not block the news. Align on the 10, 20, 50, 100 news outlets that you believe to be credible news sources and make sure that you invest advertising dollars there. Critically important.”
And he expects a positive response to his call.
“I think you will find, over the next coming days and weeks, there is an overall acknowledgement,” Cohen adds.
“We’ve gotten a lot of really good positive feedback as of late that most people agree that we need news now more than ever and that I hope that we’re going to start seeing folks come back to that environment in the short-term and in the long-term.”
brand safety vendors are doing a tight rope walk between PR teams messaging 'we gotta help news in this time of crisis' and sales teams messaging 'look at us, we'll keep you away from coronavirus content.' Meanwhile, Google saying "hold my beer, we set the rules."
— Jason #StayHome Kint (@jason_kint) March 26, 2020
The IAB is a member body representing more than 650 leading media companies, brands and the technology firms responsible for selling, delivering, and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns.
eMarketer has revised-down its annual ad spend outlook thanks to COVID-19, and, despite growth in consumption of media platforms from homebound consumers, says: “Even as we’re spending more time (online), we are actually seeing advertisers start pulling back some of their spend on these digital platforms.”
Asked how advertisers will react, IAB’s Cohen tells Beet.TV: “Most people will take a stop or a pause for a very limited period of time, rethink, replan, reevaluate, and then get back in market.”
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of brand safety and the use of keyword blocking during the COVID-19 pandemic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
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