CEO DATELINE - Advertising association launches brand protection bureau
CEO DATELINE - Advertising association launches brand protection bureau
- April 11, 2018 |
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Walt Williams
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The American Association of Advertising Agencies is launching a new bureau to focus on brand safety in advertising as more businesses worry about negative public reaction if their ads appear alongside controversial online content.
4A's Advertiser Protection Bureau will provide "advertising assurance," which the association defines as "the idea that we needed to refocus the conversation to be about brand safety for the brands and consumer safety for the consumers," the trade publication Adweek reported Tuesday.
4A's did not further define what it meant by brand safety, but the issue has been much debated in the advertising industry in recent years. Online advertising has been a boon and curse for many businesses seeking to advertise their goods and services. Digital ads can potentially reach millions of viewers, but in many cases businesses have little control over the content that accompanies their ads.
Recent surveys have found that marketers worry about ads appearing alongside controversial online content such as racist YouTube videos or "fake news" stories, both of which have the potential to generate negative press and drive away customers. Even in traditional media there are risks, with protestors calling for boycotts of companies that advertise on certain TV or radio programs because of political views espoused by the hosts.
"I think brand safety blew up and cropped up in different places at different times at different levels of concern for different advertisers. Agencies were just trying to deal with what was cropping up," 4A's Executive Vice President of Media Louis Jones told Adweek.
4A's announced the new bureau during the group's Accelerate conference, held this week in Miami. Several advertising holding company executives are founding members of the bureau. http://bit.ly/2Hxgr2p
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