The New
Brand Safety
Crisis

A Fractured
Environment“Up until a couple of years ago, brand safety was neversomething that was even discussed, even remotely.”p. 03

Risk Factors andHarmful Effects“I’m not sure there would be as much anxiety about runningin that type of environment had this election not turned out
as it did, or if the conversation around the current president
wasn’t as fraught.”

p. 07

Prevention andTreatmentp. 13“It’s not one box you need to check; it’s many. We protect
ourselves six different ways. Crazy, but necessary.”Reaching
Crisis
The symptoms have been
consistent over the past
three years: Hard news
aversion, platform paralysis,
sudden ad withdrawal, andchronic digital media anxiety.

Taken on a case-by-case basis, thisconstellation of effects has a varietyof causes. But taken together, thesheer mass of recent cases suggests
an alarming new outbreak of an age-old
scourge: the brand safety crisis.

In the following pages, we’ll report ourstudy’s key findings and attempt to trace
According to a recent study conducted the epidemic’s root causes, ultimately
identifying how brands, agencies,in concert with Digiday Media, an
alarming 75 percent of brands reported publishers, and platforms can limit
their risk in a more complicated digitalat least one brand-unsafe exposure
media environment.
in the past year. And it’s not all about
reputation and social media backlash:
These incidents can do profounddamage, leading to brand confusion
and, in extreme cases, loss of revenue.
METHODOLOGY
Given the number of partners abrand engages with in the digital
ecosystem, members of the media
and marketing communities are rightto be concerned—70 percent say
they’re taking brand safety seriously
or very seriously. However, despitethat concern, very few have taken
adequate preventative measures.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

That inaction is stymying, given that an
attack on a brand’s reputation and ability
to market effectively on digital platforms
compromises the entire ecosystem.

The GumGum Brand Safety Epidemic
Survey interviewed over 200 industry
professionals between October 30 andNovember 10, 2017. Respondents worked
for brands, agencies, or online publishers,
predominantly in the U.S.

02

|A FRACTURED ENVIRONMENTIn the past year, frequent untouchables like drugs, sex and alcohol
have made room for partisan politics, gun violence, fake news, andsocial media outrage.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISISA Fractured
Environment

A Fractured
Environment
A UNIVERSAL SYNDROME
It’s been more than two years since the first highprofile brand safety outbreak was recorded in theplatform era. Famously, the U.S. State Department
discovered ads for national advertisers including
Aveeno, Budweiser and Swiffer running on YouTube
alongside ISIS recruitment videos. The ad buys werehardly treasonous, but they laid bare the result ofprogrammatic ad technology’s opaque mechanisms.
The digital environment has only gotten more
complicated since. In the past year, frequent
untouchables like drugs, sex and alcohol have maderoom for partisan politics, gun violence, fake news
and social media outrage. “Up until a couple of years
ago, brand safety was never something that waseven discussed, even remotely,” said Bob Liodice,
CEO of the Association of National Advertisers.
The following charts outline how the marketingand media community perceives threats to brandsafety and how they’ve been affected thus far.

Has your brand (or a brand you’ve worked with)ever been exposed to brand safety issues?

9%
Yes,
regularly

15%
Yes,
once

43%
Yes,
a few
times

33%
No

How long have you been actively employing technologies
or solutions to avoid brand safety issues?

11%
3 - 6
months

68 percent of respondents said they havealready confronted brand safety issues,
with 54 percent reporting more than
one exposure. While brand safety is nota new problem, 45 percent have been
employing solutions for less than a year
and 15 percent don’t use any at all.

23%
> 2 years

14%
N/A

14%
23%

< 3 months

6 months- 1 year

15%
1 - 2
years

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

04

A Fractured
Environment
The most respondents pointed to hate speechas the riskiest kind of content, but also
pornography and violence as prominent
perceived risk factors.
And yet, when asked what they’ve actuallyencountered, bad news (disasters/tragedies)and divisive politics stood out.

Which of the following factors do you consider
to be the most brand unsafe?

Which of the following types of brand-unsafe
content have you encountered adjacent to youror your clients’ digital advertising?
(Select all that apply.)

39%
Disaster/Tragedy34%
Hate
Speech17%~1% eachPornography

Vulgar Language,
Copyright
Infringement,
Drugs,& Other

Divisive
Politics

Drugs

7%
Pornography

10%13%
Violence

5%Competing
Brand

39%

4%

39%

Copyright
Infringement

Fake
News

18%
Violence

6%

8%
Disaster/Tragedy Divisive
Politics

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

11%
Fake News

32%

21%
VulgarLanguage

26%

Competitor’s
Branding

Hate
Speech05

A Fractured
Environment
PERCEIVED BRAND SAFETY RISK BY PLATFORM
Which of the following platforms is the mostperilous for your or your client’s brand in termsof brand safety risks?

- VS.Which of the following platforms is the most brand safe?

SAFE

LinkedIn (+45)

Search (+11)

YouTube (-8)
Publisher sites (-10)
Twitter (-11)

Facebook (-23)

UNSAFETHE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

Despite YouTube’s persistent brand safety
episodes, Facebook bottomed out as theriskiest platform for ads. LinkedIn was
ranked the most brand-safe platform.

06

|
RISK FACTORS & HARMFUL EFFECTS

About 70 percent of brands and agencies said they or their clients
have been exposed to brand safety risks at least once, with 10
percent of respondents reporting “regular” exposure.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

Risk Factors andHarmful Effects

Communities
at Risk“Without that kind of specialization, I can’t imagine any company being
able to fully make good on that promise of a brand-safe environment.”
BRANDS AND THEIR AGENCIES
Brands, whose titular health is imperiled, have the mostto lose in the wake of a brand safety scandal. “Marketers
spend years and years and millions, if not billions, of dollars
to elevate a brand,” said Liodice. “In one fell swoop, that
reputation, that equity, that loyalty can be damaged orseverely disrupted.”
About 70 percent of brands and agencies said they ortheir clients have been exposed to brand safety risks atleast once, with 10 percent of respondents reporting“regular” exposure.
And yet, only 26 percent of brands reported having had
safety measures in place for at least two years. The rest
have come to employ brand safety measures only within thepast year, and about 13 percent aren’t using any protection atall. Those stats improve slightly when agencies are factored
in. After all, their programmatic rigor and understanding is
employed to protect brands.
“You need to have dedicated experts like myself and myteam who can focus their time on learning exactly howthat technology works,” said Michael Santee, programmatic
media director at Cramer-Krasselt. “Without that kind of
specialization, I can’t imagine any company being able tofully make good on that promise of a brand-safe environment.”

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

08

Communities
at Risk
FOR

Media buyers/Brands

DUE TOPUBLISHERS & PARTNERS
While brands have their reputations on the line, the current
brand safety crisis threatens the fiscal health of the partners
who create and circulate a wide variety of content. “Let’sface it,” said the ANA’s Liodice. “Their own reputations are
involved. Their own business credentials are challenged.”“Let’s face it. Their own reputations are involved.
Their own business credentials are challenged.”
Facebook’s prominent role in last years’ fake news epidemic
has certainly tarnished its brand safety reputation. Bothbuyers and sellers ranked the platform as the least safe forbrands. Publishers sites ranked second however, with about
25 percent of votes from both sides of the industry. Potential
exposure to bad news, divisive politics, and violence, likely
drives this perception.
At Newsy, a multiplatform video publisher, advertisers
are well-aware that they’re dealing with a news-focusedcompany. Nonetheless, the sales team is instructed to be
crystal clear with clients.
Like 59 percent of publishers, Blake Sabatinelli said direct
relationships were the most effective way to make sure abrand’s ads are circulating in the appropriate environments.
Blacklists came in second at 31 percent, followed by ads.txt(24 percent) and keyword detection (22 percent).
“We’re not going to sign someone who doesn’t want to be
associated with news,” said Sabatinelli, whose sales reps
work through programmatic direct automation and private
marketplaces. From there the publication primarily uses
keyword and category tagging to ensure placement. “We canseparate them and put them in safer categories like scienceor technology or entertainment, sports, etc.”

PRIMARY

Platform & partner risks

BRAND RxTALK TO YOURPARTNER ABOUT
BRAND SAFETY
Without proper precautions in place, yourbrand is vulnerable to a brand safety
crisis. When disaster strikes, we’ll haveyou covered on the next steps to take —but these publishers and agencies haveplenty of tips on preventative measures.
EVALUATE THE RISKS“News publishers create the content.
If you’re buying a news publisher, it’sa known quantity, what you’re goingto get. You’re gonna get news. And if
you don’t think that’s safe, whether or
not you’re the brand buying direct or an
agency buying on behalf of a brand, it
kinda is what it is,” says Blake Sabatinelli,general manager and chief satisfaction
officer at Newsy. “It’s news. The buckstops with the person that makes the
buy and if the expectation of the buy was
to be brand safe and you went off andbought a whole bunch of content that’s
associated with terrorism... I can see
why a brand might be upset.”
SPEAK UP IN ADVANCE“Some brands are more sensitive topolitical content,” notes Michael Santee,
programmatic media director at CramerKrasselt. “That’s something that someclients do bring up to the front. In my
particular position, I mostly interface
with the planning teams directly, and I’ve
heard from them in a couple of instancesthat they cannot actually be involved
with that. And again, that’s probably
more related to our stricter clients orthe clients that have a stricter thresholdfor safety.”
SIGNED

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

09

Risk
Factors
PROGRAMMATIC INADEQUACY
Programmatic has come a long way in the past five years,
but there are still gaps. Ad analytics company Adyapper
was paid to analyze a client’s campaign, and found theirads running on porn, fake news and file-sharing websitesthat they thought had been blacklisted.
“When I was coming up in the 80s [...] you knew yourmedia inside out. Balancing the opportunities and risks,
the upsides and downsides of where your precious dollars
were being spent,” said Liodice. “That level of meticulous
strategic media planning and approach is something that,in the digital arena, may be far less rigorous.”
Programmatic experts, however, say it’s not lack ofrigor, but the complexity of the supply chain that createsproblems for marketers. With so many middle men,“it’s harder to get to the end point,” said Rob Auger,
vice president and group director of media technology
at DigitasLBi.
That endpoint is a sour surprise for marketers who findtheir ads running alongside hate speech. Sleeping Giants,
a social media organization dedicated to stopping racist,
sexist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic news sites, said they
have alerted more than 3,500 brands that their ads werebeing programmatically served on sites including InfoWars
and Breitbart News.
Overall, the effort has been well-received by advertisers, a
representative for Sleeping Giants said. “You kind of know
it when you see it. And when advertisers see it, they don’t
want to be a part of it. That’s why a simple screenshot of
their ad next to Breitbart’s content has worked. We haven’t
had to do any real convincing.”

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISISA TOXIC NEWS CYCLE
Even before his election in November 2016, President
Donald J. Trump roiled political pages, fanned the flamesof social media outrage and called into question the integrityof the very social platforms that consumers called home.
Wary about running alongside reports that stoke negative
emotions, brands have backed off of placements on politicalpages and, more generally, hard news.
“I’m not sure there would be as much anxiety about
running in that type of environment had this election not
turned out as it did, or if the conversation around thecurrent president” wasn’t as fraught, said Michael Santee,
programmatic media director at Cramer-Krasselt.
All this is bad news for publishers, who have not only
found it tough to monetize the “Trump Bump,” but struggle
to sell their highest volume inventory. “If you look at theaudience that news delivers,” said Sabatinelli, “you won’t
find a more dedicated and loyal audience, people thatwatch a lot of content that come back a lot and are reallybeneficial for advertisers.”

10

Risk
Factors
FOR

RISKY IMAGERYYouTube’s record has never been spotless, but November
was particularly hairy for the social video platform. First,
word of videos featuring popular children’s characters
engaging in disturbing sexual acts bubbled up throughReddit to The New York Times. Then, reports of inappropriate
comments on videos featuring children were flagged byusers and news outlets.
The result was a brand safety nightmare. A long list ofadvertisers, including Mars and Adidas, pulled their ads
from the site. But just 13 percent of brands and agencies
ranked YouTube as the most brand unsafe, suggesting thatawareness around the huge brand safety risk presented byimagery is not top of mind for marketers.
This suggests a lack of awareness of the huge brand safety
risk presented by images or, at the very least, an industry
overwhelmed by the task. A recent report by LDV Capital
estimated that there would be 45 billion cameras in theworld by 2022.
That figure is staggering,considering that the worldis already awash in usergenerated photography andvideo, far more than can bescreened by an army of social
media managers. Still, brands
have to be vigilant about
appearing next to visual social
content, be it on YouTube,
Facebook, Instagram,or elsewhere.

Media buyers/Brands

DUE TOPRIMARY

Platform & partner risks

BRAND Rx

HOW’S YOURCOMPUTER VISION?
Brands can’t afford to turn a blind eye toimages in combating safety risks. And
yet, not only are few aware of the problemof risky imagery, fewer are aware of arevolutionary treatment available to them:computer vision.
While most brand safety providers rely ontext analysis only, AI-powered computer
vision uses neural networks to screen
millions of images for triggers like nudity,
guns, crashes and swastikas. In a world
where user generated content continues torise, advertisers are well-advised to bewareof platform content that’s not filtered byblacklists or text-based keyword analysis.
For more information on how computer
vision can improve brand safety, visit
GumGum.com.

Patient reports inventory blind spots
and short-term brand confusion.
Recommend image screening oncea week + blacklist development.

Follow up visit in 2 weeks.

SIGNED

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

11

Harmful
Effects
SOCIAL MEDIA BLOWBACK AND NEGATIVE PRESS
This winter, Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter’s criticism
of the NFL backfired: Social media branded the company
the official pizza of the alt-right and Schnatter was forced
to leave the company in December. Likewise, when Keurig
pulled its ads from Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, videos
of his most devoted fans shot-gunning their coffee makers
lit up the platforms.
“We live in a very politically divided society,” said Ronn
Torossian, CEO at 5W Public Relations. “We live in a world
where people are very apt to quickly stand up and feign outrage.
And sometimes that outrage is real, and sometimes it is scary.”
Sometimes, he noted, it’s just a few trolls. Brands need to beable to tell the difference and know when it matters.

BRAND CONFUSION
Brands spend decades building relationships with
consumers that share core values. “People today buy on
belief,” said Torossian. When a brand is viewed as supporting
content that undermines those brands, consumers can get
confused about what the brand stands for. Of the marketers
polled, 36 percent said brand confusion had been a problem
for them in the past.

REVENUE LOSS
Social media boycotters may make a lot of noise, but rarely
do brand safety incidents significantly hurt the bottom line.
While 47 percent of brand respondents noted social media
blowback in response to a brand safety incident, and 25
percent said they’d gotten negative press, juts 13 percent
said they’d lost revenue. And, of those who’d lost revenue,
56 percent of respondents said it amounted to no more than
$10,000. On the other end of the spectrum, about 18 percent
said it cost them $100,000 or more.

SO YOU’VE HAD
A BRAND SAFETYCRISIS
Sometimes, even the best preventative
measures fail and a brand safety crisis
occurs. But don’t worry — we’ll speak
to brand safety experts and PR crisis
management execs to determine the mostappropriate course of action for your brandto take in case of emergency.
HAVE A PLAN
“Brands need to have an emergency
preparedness plan in place,” advises Ronn
Torossian, president and CEO of 5W Public
Relations. “The public doesn’t care that it’s
your anniversary. The public doesn’t carethat your kid’s sick. Things today explodeon digital very, very, very quickly, and you
got to be ready to go.” With a brand safety
plan all ready to go, you’ll significantly
lower the risk of responding too rashly
in the wake of a crisis — or worse, notresponding at all.
TALK IT OUT“I for one am a believer that if in fact you
have long-term loyalty and brand equities,
and friends and family as part of yourconsumer and customer base, that you
would do well to reach out and speak withthem about a situation that they mightfind appalling,” says Bob Liodice, CEO of
ANA. “I don’t think laying low is the rightthing to do….If you want to create a great
relationship, which is your objective, thenlike any great relationship, you need to behonest, and candid and direct.”
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS
Not every crisis is as disastrous as it may
seem. According to Ronn Torossian, “Justbecause six people tweet about boycotting
your brand, it doesn’t necessarily matter.
Decide and understand what matters to you.”SIGNED

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

12|PREVENTION & TREATMENT

Preventing brand safety crises from occurring and doing triage
when a crisis has hit demand different mindsets and approaches,but brands are currently applying the same toolset to both.
Savvy agencies and their brands use a combination of protective
measures to prevent unwanted adjacencies. “It’s not one box you
need to check; it’s many,” said Santee. “We protect ourselves six
different ways. Crazy, but necessary.”

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

Prevention andTreatment

Prevention andTreatment
KEYWORD DETECTION
This method, employed as a preventative measure by 53 percent of brands and agencies,
allows advertisers to filter out content they don’t want to associate with at the category
and article level. Airlines, for example, don’t want their ads next to breaking news abouta plane crash.
MOST FREQUENT USE:
Prevention of unwanted adjacencies and other RTB-based brand risks transmission.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
Difficulty communicating with key audiences.

BLACKLISTSAs a preventative measure, blacklisting comes in second with 50 percent of respondents using
the practice. But once a crisis hits, it hits number one. Drawn up by agencies but
implemented by Demand Side Platforms, blacklists exclude websites based on the content
they distribute. This year, AppNexus and others made news when they opted to pro-actively
blacklist sites like Breitbart in an effort to calm advertisers’ nerves.
PRESCRIBE FOR:
Antiseptic measure that stems the distribution of ads in contaminated environments.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
Decreased impressions.

WHITELISTS
In a supply chain where a brand’s ads could show up on hundreds & thousands of unknown
sites, whitelisting is an effort to preapprove partners they trust to keep them next tobrand safe content. About 35 percent of brands and agencies use this as a preventative
measure, while 24 percent use it as a corrective measure.
PRESCRIBE FOR:
Brand quarantine; nearly eliminates contact with infectious content.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
Precipitous drop in reach and impressions.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

14

Prevention andTreatment
DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS WITH PUBLISHERS
Buying ad space directly from a publisher allows brands and agencies to work through theirbrand safety concerns at the beginning of a relationship, and to pursue direct recourse whenthose partners don’t deliver. This is perhaps why it’s favored by 43 percent of respondents
as a preventative measure, and 35 percent as a corrective measure. As always, publishers
strongly recommend transactions within a committed relationship.
PRESCRIBE FOR:
Key nutrient. Direct relationships help maintain overall health and quality of ad buys.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
Premium pricing; occasional hard news exposure.

THIRD-PARTY SOLUTIONS
Brands also pointed to partners like Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify to keep them safe, with
37 percent of respondents saying they’re employing such a company as a preventative tactic. Whenscrambling after a crisis, only 26 percent look to such partners to shore up their defenses.
PRESCRIBE FOR:
Monitoring vital statistics.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
None known.

IMAGE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY
Despite the explosion of imagery across publisher sites and social platforms, relatively
few brands and agencies are using image recognition technology—an AI-backed tech that uses
neural networks to identify and sort imagery to screen for brand unsafe pictures. Indeed 44
percent of brands and agencies grapple with brand unsafe imagery, while 32 percent grapple
with brand unsafe video. But just 15 percent use computer vision to scan before placement,
while 11 percent employ it as corrective technology. Moreover, publishers, who can use thetech to ensure safe placements for their partners, are in the dark. Just 2 percent use it
to prevent incidents and 10 percent use it to treat misalignment.
PRESCRIBE FOR:
Monitoring contextual images for pictures that compromise otherwise sound alignments.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE:
None known.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

Patient reports blurred vision, inability to categorize
images & loss of reputation when in contact w/
alcohol/drugs/unsavory companions.
Refer to P. Schraeder for immediate consultation-(844) 522-7270.
		

15

A Guide to
Brand Safety
Side Effects
DECREASED REACH
In March of this year, JP Morgan Chase famously pared back their partners to
5,000 sites from 400,000 in a much heralded brand safety maneuver. But thiskind of grand scale whitelisting is often a double-edged sword for advertisers.
What they get in safety, they may lose in reach.
Of the brands and agencies who flag blacklists and whitelists as key brandsafety tactics, 59 percent say they suffer from a smaller audience pool,compared with 46 percent on average. That may not matter to big spenders
like Chase, but when media planners with smaller budgets are on the hook for
impressions and conversions, those lists can slow progress.

INABILITY TO REACH SPECIFIC AUDIENCES
Keyword targeting, marketers’ most loved tactic, hasa downside: screening out content that might provide
valuable impressions with key consumers. If an energy
drink wanted to screen for violence, for example, thatfilter might also exclude mixed martial arts fan sites,
read by legions of guys looking for a quick energy boost.

INABILITY TO SPEND FULL BUDGET
Brand safety is a balancing act for advertisers.
With each safeguard they put in place, they tradepotential impressions. Throttle too much content
and not only will they not reach their campaign
goals, they may not even have a broad enoughtarget to expend their full budget.
“There’s a bunch of different levels of safety wehave. The most sensitive client’s line of defense
would be a well-managed whitelist,” said Rob
Auger of DigitasLBi. Cutting off source traffic might
eliminate bot fraud, but it may also eliminate sites
where legitimate impressions can be bought.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

16

Recovery &Awareness
No brand safety tactic is 100 percent effective. But taken
together, brand safety measures can dramatically reduce
the risks associated with unwanted adjacencies.
Why should it be a priority? When brands are damaged, we
all suffer. Brands, agencies, and publishers all must quickly
take steps to protect advertisers, lest their budgets plummet
along with their reputations.
The trick will be in finding the right prescription for each party.

THE NEW BRAND SAFETY CRISIS

17

GumGum is an artificial intelligence company with deep expertisein computer vision. Our mission is to unlock the value of images
and videos produced daily across the web, social media andbroadcast television. Since 2008, the company has applied
its patented capabilities to serve a variety of industries fromadvertising to professional sports.

Visit GumGum.com to see how computer vision
can help protect your brand.
© COPYRIGHT 2008-2017 GUMGUM, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Researched and produced by Custom, a Digiday Media Agency on behalfof GumGum. Digiday.com Audience Survey fielded October 2017.