Short-form video has swiftly become a key component of digital advertising campaigns. Reaching more than two billion users worldwide, YouTube Shorts is one of the most popular short-form video platforms in the world, making it an essential tool for marketers to reach a vast and engaged short-form video audience.

Starting today, IAS is expanding our partnership with YouTube to bring Brand Safety and Suitability measurement to YouTube Shorts inventory across Video View Campaigns, Video Reach Campaigns, and YouTube Select Shorts campaigns, as part of Total Media Quality for YouTube. 

With Brand Safety and Suitability measurement on YouTube Shorts, marketers get:

• Valuable third-party assurance that ads running on YouTube Shorts are appearing in brand safe and suitable environments at the video-level and aligned with the GARM framework
• Comprehensive coverage with Brand Safety and Suitability reporting across 30+ languages, alongside Viewability and Invalid Traffic measurement with Total Media Quality for YouTube

Access the most actionable data to maximise returns on your investment on YouTube Shorts inventory.

Download the one sheet now to get started. 

The post IAS brings Brand Safety and Suitability measurement to YouTube Shorts appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

The objective of this study is to uncover what Thai consumers regard as brand safe/unsafe content and also to understand the impact the ad environment has on their perceptions of brands and their advertising.

The report looks at three specific areas:

• Appropriate and inappropriate content
• Perceptions of Brands and Advertising
• Safety in Journalism and News

Key Takeaways include:

• 85% of Thai consumers say that it is important to them that the content surrounding online ads is appropriate
• 71% of Thai consumers say that brands are responsible for the content surrounding their ads
• 83% of Thai consumers say it is important to them that ad funding supports responsible journalism

Download the full research report here today

The post RESEARCH: Brand Safety in Thailand. A Consumer Report appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Video content is rapidly increasing, blurring the lines between what is and isn’t suitable for your brand. Gain control of your brand message amid the content boom with IAS’s industry-leading brand safety and suitability measurement for YouTube.

IAS’s global solution gives marketers granular classification at scale, thanks to cutting-edge, machine learning technology. What’s more, IAS is certified in the YouTube Measurement Program, making us a trusted partner to drive your marketing performance on YouTube.

With IAS’s brand safety and suitability measurement on YouTube, you get:
– Deeper Insights with machine learning-powered details about video content, providing you best-in-class brand safety and suitability scoring
– Industry Alignment with scoring classification consistent with the GARM Brand Safety and Suitability framework
– Granular Classification at Scale with daily reporting across the GARM categories and four risk levels, allowing advertisers to stay informed and take action.

Maximise your campaign impact on YouTube with sophisticated brand safety and suitability measurement. Download the one sheet now to get started.

The post Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement for YouTube appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Our ANZ Country Manager Jessica Miles was honoured to join a fantastic webinar in association with National Online Retailers Association (NORA) alongside Nicola Clement of Myer, Bronte Jackson of Miss Amara, James Perry of Woolies X and Laura Kleiman of Crimtan, that explored how to drive the best results and increase new customers, convert existing ones and grow customer lifetime value with a lifecycle marketing approach through the following key topics:

• Media quality and how it is a critically important consideration for all retailers
• Learning how to buy digital media efficiently and reach quality targeted consumers
• Learning what are the key factors when selecting your programmatic partner

You can watch this webinar on the NORA website here.

The post Retail Webinar: Maximising Your Media Ad Spends appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

While over 50% of consumers buy or advocate for brands based on their beliefs or values, less than 5% of media spends by Brands in Asia have Brand Safety or Verification controls in place.

But why build a brand just to tear it down online?

Determining risk tolerance, is critical in the pursuit of audience reach and relevance. Ultimately, paying more for one impression may leave a lasting impression on consumers.

To help guide brands navigate this ever challenging topic of Brand Safety, Integral Ad Science partnered with MediaCom to produce a white paper entitled ‘Making the Right Impression – Building Safe Brands Online’

The white-paper highlights the issues faced by Brands in the current climate, areas where Brands need to evolve and best practices to ensure a safer advertising experience.

You can download the white paper here and we also invite you to view our recent loop_live Webinar where members of the Integral Ad Science and MediaCom Team discuss the white-paper in full.

The post IAS x MediaCom – Brand Safety Whitepaper appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

IAS Post-Bid Brand Safety & Suitability is now on TikTok, available in select regions globally and in line with the GARM Brand Safety and Suitability categories. This newest advancement joins our previously announced suite of solutions for TikTok: Viewability and Invalid Traffic (IVT) and the IAS Pre-Bid Brand Safety Solution.

Advertisers can access IAS’s end-to-end brand safety solution suite, rounding out a comprehensive set of industry-leading solutions for TikTok. With IAS for TikTok, advertisers can unlock:

• Holistic, third-party pre-bid targeting and post-bid brand safety, suitability, viewability, and IVT measurement
• Leading end-to-end coverage on TikTok through pre- and post-bid brand safety and suitability solutions
• Proprietary frame-by-frame video, audio, and text content classification technology
• Granular reporting with 24/7 access to IAS Signal
• Actionable validation of media quality across TikTok

Run across TikTok with confidence knowing your media investment is appearing next to content aligned with your brand from beginning to end. Download the one sheet to get started today.

The post Post-Bid Brand Safety & Suitability on TikTok appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

In this ever-burgeoning industry, misinformation, disinformation, and fake news are the most concerning media quality threats. Although marketers spend billions of dollars on building brands, these threats can cause serious harm to the brand’s reputation. An inclination to advertise on social media translates to an increasing fear of media quality threats.

Integral Ad Science (IAS), in partnership with YouGov, surveyed over 500 digital media experts from brands, agencies, publishers and adtech providers to understand and examine the perspectives surrounding these threats. The research revealed the following trends:

• A vast majority of media experts agree misinformation should be actively avoided, but few say their organisations have clear guidelines.
• Recent global events have fueled the threat of misinformation, disinformation, and fake news content.
• A large number of industry experts report high levels of concern regarding media threats.
• Marketers and brands prioritise social platforms even though they consider the
  environment vulnerable to misinformation.

As ad spending continues to grow, total ad spend across media in India is estimated to cross the ₹1 lakh crore mark in 2022 making media quality assurance ever present as buyers and sellers seek to minimise known and emerging threats. The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) estimates that advertisers unwittingly provide at least $235m to global disinformation sites annually.

Below are a few strategies that marketers can implement to minimise these threats:

Context-based strategies vs broad blocking
Context-based strategies allow ad buyers and sellers to avoid misinformation with
minimal impact on reach. However, it is underused as basic blocking tactics remain the most popular, despite their impact on diminishing audience reach and advertising opportunities. Interestingly, less than one-third of respondents currently use or plan to use context-based avoidance and targeting methods, while less than one-fifth leverage pre- or post-bid avoidance segments.

Contextual targeting strategies yield more substantial consumer attention, significantly boosting brand favorability and consumer purchase intent. In-context ads are proven to generate higher memorability and increase brand recall and awareness among consumers. With Google phasing out the use of third-party data, the attention to contextual targeting will be a key attention point for marketers as they try to target the right consumer.

Utilising solutions dedicated to ensuring brand protection
Marketers require more advanced tools to protect their brand reputation. Industry-wide measures by ad tech platforms to ensure fake news, disinformation, and misinformation are tackled aggressively are the need of the hour. *42% of media experts are concerned about the impact on their company’s reputation in the event of an adjacency near misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.

To provide advertisers with enhanced misinformation protection, IAS partnered with the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), making IAS the first ad verification company to help marketers avoid misinformation based on GDI’s standards.

GDI is a trusted third party that sets the standard for what qualifies as disinformation and focuses on restoring trust in media sites worldwide by providing real-time automated risk ratings.

Such partnerships with gatekeepers of the misinformation give advertisers confidence that their campaigns run on quality news platforms and avoid misinformation sites. With expanded global coverage, IAS can identify more sources of misinformation and ensure greater protection for your digital campaigns.

Contextually relevant content increases memorability and favourability
A digital ad can only be considered impact-making if it is seen — not just served.
However, as many as one-third of digital ads go unseen by consumers in specific
environments. This can be attributed to factors such as: is the ad targeting the right
consumer? Is it served in the right place? Is it served in the proper context?

Marketers must understand how the environment or consumer interaction can interfere with viewability. For starters, the longer your ads are in front of consumers, the more excellent the opportunity to leave an impression. To understand how display ads perform when in context versus out of context, IAS recently released a study, ‘Ad Context & Attention’ conducted in partnership with Tobii, the global leader in eye tracking and a pioneer in attention computing. Below are some key findings:

• The in-context ad was the first-page element consumers noticed
• Purchase intent was higher among consumers who viewed the in-context ad,
  increasing by 14%
• The In-context ad generated higher brand favorability among participants,
  resulting in a 5% increase when compared with consumers viewing the out-of-
  context ad
• Consumers were four times more likely to remember a brand unaided after
  seeing an in-context ad versus an out-of-context ad.

As content consumption grows for the everyday person, the possibility of advertising alongside fake news or misleading content presents a challenge for brands and marketers alike. AI/ ML- based algorithms are required to reach and stop online ad fraud. Furthermore, safeguards in place, such as partnerships with gatekeepers of misinformation and disinformation like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) help marketers to tackle misinformation in real-time.

This article was first published on Agency Reporter.

The post Context-based strategies protect and enhance brand reputation in the age of misinformation and disinformation appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

As ad spending continues to grow, total media ad spending is expected to approach $350 billion in 2022, making media quality assurance ever-present as buyers and sellers seek to minimise known and emerging threats. The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) estimates that advertisers unwittingly provide at least $235m to global disinformation sites annually.

This deceiving content can originate from various sources and even look like reliable news outlets produce it. The popularity of these stories is often exacerbated when spread via social media channels – despite the platforms’ efforts to identify and remove them. This number is likely to continue growing as fast-evolving news cycles create opportunities for bad actors to spread mis/disinformation and inflammatory news.

A Large Number of Industry Experts Report High Levels of Concern Regarding Media Threats and Consumer Trust in Media is Waning.

In partnership with YouGov, IAS surveyed over 500 digital media experts from brands, agencies, publishers and adtech providers to examine perspectives surrounding misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. As ad spending grows, media quality threats will remain top of mind, with 84 per cent of experts reporting “high” or “very high” levels of concern about at least one threat. Most of these industry experts flag content-spreading misinformation, disinformation, and fake news as the most concerning media quality threats, with 63 per cent reporting “high” or “very high” levels of concern. In such an event, the impact on company reputation and consumer distrust is a more significant problem than campaign ROI.

Marketers worry that their advertising could be inadvertently monetising publishers that are low-quality at best and scammy at worst. This is a genuine danger, especially when coupled with the fact that a dollar spent on these sites is a dollar that would have been better spent on a local, regional, or national news site or similar environment with editorial guardrails and a commitment to producing responsible media.

Though digital media experts agree that the spread of misinformation is the most concerning media quality threat, apprehension persists around ad fraud, adjacencies next to questionable content (i.e. brand risk), and low viewability for more than half of respondents, according to the report.

Meanwhile, more than 50 per cent of Millennial and Gen X consumers are less likely to buy products from a brand if they see the brand within an unreliable ad environment. The harsh reality for advertisers and publishers is that consumer trust in media is waning, according to Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer. The negative impact of misinformation is not only eating up ad spend dollars for thousands—if not millions—of businesses but also putting their brand reputation at risk and working against brand safety initiatives.

What Actions Can Marketers Take to Impact Their Brand Safety Efforts Positively?

Trust and transparency in digital media quality have never been more critical. With the rise of brand risk globally, marketers need to safeguard their brands and avoid misinformation content; here are a few steps for them to consider:

• First and foremost, marketers should review their current brand safety and suitability strategies. What are their brand safety and suitability focus, brand risk appetite, risks they are most concerned about, what opportunities are unique to their brands etc.
• Understand that using just keyword blocking to avoid unsuitable environments will make it a blunt approach that blocks tons of perfectly suitable inventory, driving up media costs and reducing scale.
• Once brands have a brand safety and suitability strategy, start evaluating verification partners that can help them achieve it. Do they support the GARM-tiered brand safety standard? Do they allow you to customise suitability categories end-to-end in pre-bid and post-bid blocking fully and even reporting? What level of transparency do they provide? Can you get individual, impression-level reporting on unsafe exposures, or do they only report on aggregate roll-ups by site or campaign? These are essential questions your ad verification partner should be able to answer.
• Use strong brand safety and suitability tools to offer expanded global coverage and classify more misinformation sources.
• Consider verification partners with the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) partnerships. This trusted third party sets the standard for what qualifies as disinformation and focuses on restoring trust in media sites worldwide by providing real-time automated risk ratings.

This article was first published on B&T.

The post In The Age Of Misinformation, How Misleading Content Impacts Digital Advertising appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Introducing cookies and collecting first-party data transformed the digital advertising industry in more ways than one. Finding the right customer became more accessible than ever with highly targeted ads. However, growing concerns around privacy and antitrust issues meant the introduction of new guidelines from time to time, stringent measures to ensure data protection, and tech giants phasing out the use of third-party cookies. 

Starting in 2024, Google will block third-party cookies on Chrome with the technology available by the end of 2022 for developers to adopt. Although Firefox and Safari have already phased out the usage of third-party cookies, Google Chrome’s dominance in the browser industry means we will start seeing new impact-making strategies from marketers soon.

Marketers should embrace this new challenge geared toward protecting the customer’s privacy and use it as an opportunity to create a cookie-less framework for ad targeting. This will provide an opportunity to renew marketing creativity by using first-party data to make meaningful engagements with consumers. Contextual technology’s ability to find discerning and relevant placements for ads in a scalable manner results in contextual targeting quickly becoming a go-to strategy for marketers. 

In the current macroeconomic situation, driving ROI and efficiencies remain paramount for marketers, let’s deep dive and look at how contextual targeting can help marketers:

• Revisiting brand suitability to match sentiments and emotions

Brand-suitable placements are essential when reaching the right audience through contextual targeting tools. Brand suitability focuses on matching a brand’s values to the context of content that might surround its ads. Essentially, brands sell to people and people – more often than not – respond based on emotions, making purchases based on how they feel and perceive the brand or its product.

Brand suitability settings allow marketers to protect their brands from appearing next to unsafe content, offering more control over the contextual placement of ads. Brand suitability improves consumer perception and studies suggest customers are more receptive to brands where ad messaging best suits the surrounding content. 

To drive home the message of the ad, marketers need to pair their ads with the right sentiment and emotions next to brand-suitable content. A prime example is avoiding the placement of a car ad on a news report about a car crash. Such ad placement is unsuitable for a car manufacturer.

• Enhancing brand reputation by aligning with contextually relevant content 

Natural language Processing (NLP) technology offers full-page contextual analysis in real-time. IAS recently released a study ‘Ad Context & Attention’ conducted in partnership with Tobii, the global leader in eye tracking and a pioneer in attention computing. The study revealed how increased consumer attention for contextually relevant ads leads to greater purchase intent and brand favorability. Contextual relevance was effective in generating a positive impact on brand engagement, favorability, and memorability. Key findings from the study are mentioned below:

1. Contextual targeting strategies yield stronger consumer attention – The in-context ad was the first-page element consumers noticed. It took just 0.4s for consumers to notice the in-context ad vs. 1.0s to notice the out-of-context ad when viewing the article. 
2. Contextually relevant ads drive outcomes, significantly boosting brand favorability and consumer purchase intent — Purchase intent was higher among consumers who viewed the in-context ad, increasing by 14%. Additionally, the In-context ad generated higher brand favorability among participants, resulting in a 5% increase when compared with consumers viewing the out-of-context ad. 
3. In-context ads generate higher memorability and increase brand recall and awareness among consumers — Consumers were four times more likely to remember a brand, unaided, after seeing an in-context ad versus an out-of-context ad. In general, in-context display ads were more likely to be considered interesting, easy to read, clear and informative.

• Reaching the customer in a privacy-compliant manner 

Contextual Targeting can be leveraged as a new proxy for audience targeting, a solution that can be customized and scaled to reach consumers in the right mindset in a privacy-friendly manner. As our industry prepares for a cookieless future and increasingly moves away from audience targeting, advertisers have a significant opportunity to be intentional with contextual tools. Rather than focus on data management and privacy regulations that accompany collecting audience data, many marketers will switch to advertising in contextually relevant environments and use that as a proxy. Ultimately, a shift to contextual advertising is also good news for the industry because it aligns with the preferences of privacy-conscious consumers while achieving the brand’s goals for engagement. 

Contextual targeting is growing as the advertising world navigates major changes. The intent has clearly shifted from mass reach to reach the right audience at the right time and in the right environments. And that is contextual advertising for you.

Therefore, as a marketer, if you find yourself asking whether targeted and relevant ads will cease to exist without the use of third-party cookies? The answer is NO! In fact, it will evolve with technology-driven solutions that protect the privacy of users and guarantee a better ad-based experience.

This article was first published on AdGully.

The post Contextual Targeting for a Cookieless World appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Diversity and representation are currently lacking in media planning, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, where video advertisements still portray singular images of body sizes, gender characteristics and gender roles.

As only a small percentage of ads are trying to break away from body-image stereotypes, objectification, traditional gender roles and norms about gender characteristics, the World Federation of Advertisers released a guide in January 2022 to tackle diversity and representation issues in the media planning and buying process. The guide covers topics like inclusive audience planning, measuring success and many more.

While not for the lack of trying, why have brands been slow to execute an inclusive media plan programmatically? Mali Wuestenhagen, associate vice president of media services for Korea at Essence, says media agencies typically plan campaigns against provided brand briefs, which often include a definition of the audience deemed essential to achieve the brand’s business goals or the audience that the product or service has identified as relevant.

However, brands expect agencies to dig deeper through market and audience research. On the one hand, this can lead to identifying different audiences of opportunity, which would result in further diversification of communications targets beyond a given brief. On the other hand, Wuestenhagen notes it can also help to gain a deeper understanding of sub-audience groups, which may require a differentiated planning approach by building more nuanced relevance to reach them effectively and authentically.

“Media plans need to be representative of today’s society, and media needs to reflect the diversity of a brand’s customers to be impactful,” she adds.

Diversity and inclusion do not just start and end at the planning stage. Everyone in the digital ecosystem is responsible for change regarding DEI, says Laura Kusuma, senior vice president for APAC at Integral Ad Science (IAS).

She explains creative agencies must be more thoughtful by planning and thinking about particular audiences, publishers and adtech platforms. However, isolating that planning stage requires thinking outside of the norm and a nuanced understanding of the specific audiences brands are trying to target.

For example, if brands want to target migrant workers, they need to consider the magazines they read that are not in the mainstream media, the different spaces and places they are in, and consider all of these in the planning stage. 

We cannot forget, particularly in Southeast Asia and in the wider APAC region, that there is still a place for mainstream and social media. It comes down to thinking about where they are and what appeals to them. It is not just about using the same standard stock creative for every audience type, but thinking at the planning stage, not just from a media perspective, but from a creative standpoint. What will appeal to that audience? Do I need to change my message? Do I need to consider appealing to that audience at a different time in another place?

Laura Kusuma, IAS

Diverse partnerships

Data and insights can reveal how a specific audience or community can be best reached through a unique partnership that has been confirmed as highly relevant and has the power to enable brand communications to build a stronger connection.

If this enables diverse content owners to have a more significant presence in society overall, then it should be part of a plan proposal, according to Wuestenhagen.

“Yet, media planners need to also assure that additional criteria are considered, such as the possibility of measurement, and that budgets are made available to demonstrate the impact of such partnerships,” she explains.

“Evaluating the impact of diverse partnerships is imperative. Otherwise, they can potentially lose their place in plans. Demonstrating the true value that these media choices bring is key to making it a business imperative.”

Sonya David, the strategy partner at Dentsu International, notes that while many of the agency’s clients have purpose embedded into the core of their business, media is a space where they look for efficiency and effectiveness.

The balance then comes in terms of how brands try to deliver both simultaneously while also ensuring that they work with partners that help further the agenda, she explains. For example, when discussing sustainability and media, she advises brands to consider efficiency and effectiveness.

“If you can make your media work hard with minimum wastage, that is sustainability. We have scorecards that we set up at a global level to measure our carbon footprint, working very closely with IAB and other organisations to determine how we measure carbon footprint,” David says.

“However, just agencies like Dentsu doing it does not make a difference. We have to partner with our clients and introduce them to partners that can help them with those goals.”

For instance, Dentsu works with partners like Handprint Tech, Teads, and SeenThis as they can help the agency’s clients ensure that their media delivery is sustainable.

Contributing to brand safety

Brand safety must and should form the foundation of every media plan. However, brands also need to acknowledge that when overdone, it can take away funds or, in worse cases, completely exclude diverse communities.

Media agencies are responsible for contributing to brand safety input in a way that is not discriminatory by getting feedback from a diverse group, says Wuestenhagen.

She explains that while brands and media agencies still look to scale in a brand-safe and proper context, the consideration of inclusion now adds another layer to quality and effectiveness, which is the power of driving meaningful relationships. 

“When agencies can convey the significance of meaningful connections to advertisers, they can shift their focus away from just scale and towards more intimate and dynamic ties with diverse audiences and communities. This is indispensable to drive long-term brand impact while empowering diverse communities to have a voice.”

Mali Wuestenhagen

“When agencies can convey the significance of meaningful connections to advertisers, they can shift their focus away from just scale and towards more intimate and dynamic ties with diverse audiences and communities,” she says. “This is indispensable to drive long-term brand impact while empowering diverse communities to have a voice.”

Kusuma adds that brands need to understand their corporate position regarding DEI. Then, they can use tools to target or stay away from a particular group to control what is appropriate for their brand and messaging.

“These tools can help brands understand multiple languages—whether Hindi or Bahasa Indonesian—to be more inclusive,” she explains. “It is not just offering standard brand suitability segments like alcohol or hate speech but also considering culturally relevant details for practicality, such as Ramadan, Diwali or Chinese New Year, for example.”

Tracking diverse audiences

It can be challenging to track diverse audiences and their impact due to their small-scale data pools, as they often result in smaller sample sizes. It is also likely that monitoring tools will not even capture unique representative media.

For example, measuring diverse communities might only be possible with dedicated research, which often comes with an additional price tag.

However, it can very well be worth the investment, as some brands reported positive results when reaching out to specific communities in a more tailored, representative context.

“Increasing potential engagement can result in long-term brand benefits when scaled up over time, allowing to reach a broader audience of diverse communities,” says Wuestenhagen.

“Media planners should not give up on the efforts when met with initially inadequate results, but instead, continue to build on insights, improve the approach, and find solutions to challenges by working together with diverse partners and research companies.”

To measure audiences fairly, David says brands need to use data and tools to ask them the right questions.

For example, they can ask questions like who are the people who are not buying? What are the barriers facing these people, and how we can help them? What are the pain points that they have, and how does the brand find a solution that is truly unique and suitable for their consumers that address these pain points?

“When you start with these questions, you can use data to support your solutions. Qualitative data gives you textual nuance and contextual understanding of the trustworthy people’s stories,” explains David.

“But, on the other hand, quantitative information shows you how good those ideas, approaches or media strategies are in terms of being scalable, not just in terms of across a population in one market but across multiple markets as well.”

This article was first published on Campaign Asia.

The post What can brands do to execute a diverse and inclusive media plan? appeared first on Integral Ad Science.