Guardian Insights’ B2B podcast takes a look at programmatic advertising, discussing safety and suitability in a world where the advertising industry is being increasingly scrutinised.
Brand safety worries have led to advertisers being faced with the dilemma of fear versus performance. On one hand, they are scared of being caught out and on the other, over-zealous advertising blocking is impacting results and limiting performance.
Exploring one of the industry’s biggest challenges were The Guardian’s Emma-Louise Wagstaff and Edward Bray, as well as an expert panel including Claire Gleeson-Landry, display director, The Guardian; Jon Mew, chief executive, IAB UK; Kiessé Lamour, managing partner, digital best practice and brand safety, Omnicom Media Group UK; Lee Moulding, head of platform solutions, Northern Europe, IAS; and Daniel Powell-Rees, head of technology operations and optimisation, The Guardian.
Moving forward, Moulding encouraged everyone to see brand safety “as an opportunity” to align advertising with a brand’s values, to drive further engagement and association. While Kiessé called on publishers, agencies and technology companies to provide brand safe environments, that are honest and transparent.
The panellists concluded that they need to come together to change the negative perceptions of the industry. IAB UK’s chief executive Jon Mew finished the session by calling on the industry “to have that conversation with the people at the top of the funnel”. In May this year, the IAB did just this and hosted a town hall event inviting all parties to discuss how we move forward.
Last month, Newsworks together with Neuro-Insight released a neuroscience study that looked at the impact of “hard news” on responses to advertising content. The study found that advertising in a hard news environment has no negative impact on the reader, implying that brands using safety restrictions in their programmatic buying are missing out on the benefits of advertising in a high-performing newsbrand environment.
Guardian Insights’ new B2B podcast discusses the most key defining issues in the media, publishing and advertising sectors.
Find out more about our Hard News study.
