As Brand Safety Evolves, Stay Ahead of the Curve

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Caitlin Rush, global head of brand safety strategy at Twitter, discusses the speed at which brand safety has progressed due to new considerations from the past year. Below, in her own words, she lays out how advertisers can keep pace with this trajectory. Brand safety is not new. Marketers have been thoughtful about the context where their brands appear long before words like "quarantine," "disinformation" and "unprecedented" were part of our daily vocabulary. TV buyers placed spots alongside feel-good programming; print planners were mindful of the editorial across the page from their ad; and advertisers of all stripes worked to ensure ads would remain effective, reach people in the right frame of mind and avoid reputational damage. While brand safety is not new, it is evolving faster than ever. Social and digital platforms created new opportunities for marketers when they put consumers in the driver’s seat of their media experiences, leading to immersive, interactive formats and leaned-in, engaged audiences. With these new opportunities came new questions—is my brand safe among user-generated content? While we saw missteps as the industry evolved faster than policies could keep up, we have seen progress in content adjacency safety online. In fact, the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) recently commended platforms for significant progress in removing accounts and content that were in violation of guidelines, as well as reducing the prevalence of this content. At the same time, EyeSee research showed in-feed adjacency to divisive or controversial content in a social feed had no impact on brand favorability and consideration. Does this mean marketers and platforms can wash their hands of brand safety concerns and responsibility? Of course not. As culture evolves to demand more from our elected officials, public figures and society at large, the bar for brands and platforms has been raised as well. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer found that business is now the most trusted institution in the world. With this trust comes responsibility and an expectation from consumers that businesses will contribute to the betterment of society. The advertising industry has a meaningful role to play in this progress, particularly as we evolve the way we think about and define brand safety. In 2020, we saw advertisers and platforms face a moment of reckoning amid a pandemic, reignited social justice movements and heightened awareness of corporate responsibility from customers—both consumers as brands’ customers, and brands as platforms’ customers. At the end of the day, brand safety is a reflection of the evolution we’re seeing within humanity. As the world continues to progress, marketers need to look through a wider aperture when thinking about brand safety and media responsibility—considering not only the context their ads appear within, but also the voices and communities they’re supporting (or defunding), the shared values of their partners and the impact and efficacy (both positive and negative) of their safety and suitability controls. Doing this will require media buyers to take a critical look at the full advertising supply chain, eschewing easy, Band-Aid fixes to complicated issues and ultimately understanding that brand safety is, first and foremost, about human safety.

Columnist Network

As Brand Safety Evolves, Here's How to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Twitter's Caitlin Rush shares her outlook on media responsibility in 2021

Caitlin Rush

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Caitlin Rush