Statement from the IAB
The IAB UK on why brand safety remains a key concern for the digital advertising industry and how we must work together to protect the online ecosystem
Around a dozen major brands were left red-faced earlier this year when their ads were discovered on unsavoury sites devoted to paedophilia, incest, bestiality and racism. If there’s one thing sure to dent your brand reputation, that’s probably it.
This story in The Sun attracted attention to the ongoing problem of brand safety online, while household brand names were blasted for not taking more control of where their ads – and, of course, their money – ended up.
It’s stories like this that lie behind brand safety’s perennial position at the very top of senior marketers’ long list of worries. Brand safety is, and always has been, a priority. And rightfully so.
If anything it is now more important than ever due to the rise of programmatic and the increasingly sophisticated nature of the online advertising supply chain.
So it’s to prevent this kind of bad PR for the industry that the IAB is striving to define and to drive standards that foster a safe environment for ad trading.
Internet Advertising Sales House (IASH)
Of course, there’s been a necessary evolution when it comes to these standards. First came the Internet Advertising Sales House (IASH), created when the display industry was in its infancy back in 2005. In the early noughties, the supply chain was less complex and the risk of misplacement – while always there – was arguably less acute.
IASH became void with the growth and complex ecosystem of programmatic advertising. Step forward the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG)’s Good Practice Principles, which were launched more recently, along with an independent accreditation programme which has now been available to sign up to for 18 months.
We, and other industry stakeholders including fellow trade associations who comprise this group acting under the auspices of the Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS), are actively seeking more participants.
This initiative alone goes a long way to minimise the risk of ad misplacement. It provides those in the display advertising chain with a framework – clarifying rights and responsibilities within the increasingly complex process of ad trading.
Some 43 companies – representing around 80 to 90% of the applicable marketplace – have signed up. The DTSG also provides a platform for the UK digital advertising industry to help tackle infringing copyright by enabling the use of the Police IP Crime Unit’s (PIPCU) Infringing Website List (IWL). The IWL is a ‘world first and provides an authoritative list of sites that are under investigation for infringing copyright.
Good Practice Principles
The IWL can be used by advertising businesses and the latest evidence suggests that its use is significantly reducing the number of household brand ads on these sites. Recent research from PIPCU has reveled that since the launch of Operation Creative and the Infringing Website List (IWL) in 2013, there has been a 73% decrease in advertising from the UK’s top ad spending companies on copyright infringing websites.
Whilst there is no doubt that this represents progress of which the industry ought to be proud, we want more companies to sign up to the Good Practice Principles. We need to ensure that we do everything in our power to keep raising the bar, collectively, and to keep unscrupulous players at bay.
Because, it’s clear that this is a PR problem no brand in its right mind wants to have.
“If your ad appears in the wrong place, it’s public and you know there’s going to be trouble,” points out our CEO, Guy Phillipson. “Advertisers and agencies must ensure they are using tech partners accredited through the DTSG.”
The UK online ad industry has pioneered best practice and accreditation for brand safety. Good practice keeps evolving, as does online behaviour. There is always work to be done, and the IAB UK is asking to work together with you to keep this problem at bay.
