“More needs to be done now to protect the reputation of responsible advertisers on digital platforms.”
ISBA urges Google immediately to review its policies and controls on the placement of advertising and to raise the bar to eliminate the risk of brands being damaged by inappropriate context. Whatever Google's editorial policy, advertising should only be sold against content that is safe for brands.
ISBA would further encourage Google to withdraw immediately from sale any advertising inventory which it cannot guarantee as a safe environment for advertising, to restore advertiser confidence and to allow a thorough review of systems, processes and controls to take place. As a specific example, ISBA urges Google to review the practice of placing advertising immediately against newly-uploaded YouTube content, before it has been classified. Google should ensure that content is quarantined until properly categorised.
ISBA’s Media Services Framework has been prepared for its members to serve as the contractual foundation to ensure that best practice industry standards are applied in buying online media. There are also ISBA tools available to advertisers to help mitigate the impact of ad misplacement and to try to ensure online brand safety. ISBA is a founder member of JICWEBS (Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards) and DTSG (Digital Standards Trading Group), which certifies companies for their online brand safety processes.” Phil Smith, director general of ISBA the voice of British advertisers
For more information contact
Abi Slater
Director of Communications
abis@isba.org.uk