In the era of social distancing, avoidance may be the order of the day.<\/p>\n
But that shouldn’t be the case when it comes to advertising against news.<\/p>\n
Interpublic’s UM Worldwide has become the latest agency in a procession of industry players to counsel advertisers against blacklisting news publishers during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
In this video interview with Beet.TV, UM’s chief digital and innovation officer Joshua Lowcock<\/a> explains: “News is absolutely, categorically a brand-safe environment to be. There is no reason to avoid news and say that it’s not brand-suitable.<\/p>\n “The notion that you should somehow avoid negative news is, I think, a dangerous path to play because … it’s a slippery slope and you can’t ever win that debate. What’s negative to one person might not be negative to another.<\/p>\n “In the research that we’ve done, no one blames a brand for COVID-19 or coronavirus or a negative news event.”<\/p>\n From the early stages of the pandemic, many advertising buyers began using “brand safety” tools in ad-buying platforms to swerve ad opportunities against coronavirus-related content, or simply stopped advertising in news altogether.<\/p>\n That comes as publishers struggle to cope with a large-scale advertising drop-off that has pushed many farther to the brink of survival.<\/p>\n Even as the likes of Comscore launched an “epidemic brand safety filter<\/a>” to help advertisers dodge types of virus news, IAB president David Cohen published an IAB article,\u00a0How Brands and Agencies Can Save American Lives in The Coronavirus Crisis<\/a>, urging an end to the practice.<\/p>\n Publishers\u2019 group Digital Content Next also wrote a letter to marketers and ad verification companies asking them to exempt premium, trusted media companies from COVID-19 brand safety filters<\/a>.<\/p>\n For UM Worldwide’s Lowcock, when it comes to ad inventory, there is a difference between “brand safety” and “brand suitability”.<\/p>\n “I think brand safety is well-defined … it’s advertising or sponsoring content that encourages hate, violence or misinformation,” he explains.<\/p>\n “I think (brand) suitability<\/em> is less well-defined. The industry needs to evolve a little bit and stop seeing brand suitability as yet another avoidance strategy.<\/p>\n “If you’re marketing or advertising a certain product or service and it’s not empathetic to the environment that you’re in, that’s really the brand suitability crux or nexus of the issue that you need to resolve and that’s what’s come to light in this present time that we’re in.”<\/p>\nThe rush to block<\/h2>\n
Safe versus suitable<\/h2>\n
Adjust creative<\/h2>\n