Articles by: "Andrew Smith, SVP Product, Publisher – DoubleVerify"

What publishers miss about brand safety and corporate values

July 10, 2023 Andrew Smith, SVP Product, Publisher – DoubleVerify

Publishers need to keep pace with the evolution of marketing. One such evolutionary step has been the emergence of values-based marketing. This approach appeals to consumer values and ethics, and expresses a brand’s values as part of its marketing message.

As just one indicator, the rise of values-based marketing can be measured by looking at the S&P 500 over the last decade or so. In 2011, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involvement among the S&P 500 sat at under 20% according to the Harvard Business Review. By 2019, that number soared to over 90%. It took only eight years for the overwhelming majority of some of the most influential companies on Earth to embrace a more value-centric marketing approach.

One of the key motivators behind this sweeping philosophical shift is something that’s governed most public-facing company decisions since time immemorial: consumer opinion. According to Accenture, 63% of online customers surveyed around the world prefer companies and brands that share their own values. Our research found that a comparable 69% of customers stated that they agreed with the statement, “Companies that are genuine and authentic appeal to me.”

However, obvious consumer interest and strong advertiser adoption doesn’t mean there aren’t gaps. Brands should consider how all aspects of their marketing strategy might impact their values-based marketing goals–in particular, when it comes to brand safety and suitability.

The connection between brand values and brand safety

Brand safety and suitability controls enable advertisers to reduce reputational risk by avoiding content that might clash with a brand’s desired message, and this can differ greatly from advertiser to advertiser, campaign to campaign. At the same time, brands want to work with publishers that offer a voice and audience that align with their objectives and values–which means looking beyond the individual pieces of content an ad might appear alongside.

But there can be a disconnect between a brand’s values-based marketing goals and their brand safety strategies. This gap creates operational and revenue challenges for publishers as well as hindering advertisers’ ability to effectively reach the right audiences. For example, a brand’s keyword list might include words or phrases that are unintentionally limiting placements next to the content that aligns most with their desired audiences.

Bringing audience and brand values into the brand suitability conversation

As brands put more focus on their values-based marketing strategies, publishers have an opportunity to showcase how they can support those goals and help clients find the right balance with brand suitability. This starts with both sides understanding the available tools and how to work them into an optimized strategy. It ends with informed collaboration around the unique aspects of the particular publisher, brand and audience.

In the keyword example above, the brand might consider transitioning away from a keyword-based approach, which only considers what is contained in the URL-string of a page and not the context, tone or meaning of the content on that page. In most cases, a content category offers more streamlined and comprehensive protection than a keyword list while avoiding the pitfalls of excluding valuable opportunities to reach their target audience.

This points to the importance of building a nuanced and individualized brand suitability strategy that balances brand protection and brand values.

Moving the conversation forward: best practices for publishers

So, what can publishers do? Whether used in programmatic or direct environments, education and advocacy are critical to reaching mutually beneficial partnerships. For example, a publisher might consider asking to be added to an inclusion list if there is alignment between their voice and a brand’s values.

When brands strike the right balance between protection and values, they can reach larger audiences and feel safer spending more. Publishers that are empowered with an understanding of brand suitability tools and how they work can help advertisers align their settings with their values and marketing goals. And that’s a win for everyone.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Winners from the CTV boom to be decided by early measurement adoption

May 23, 2022 Andrew Smith, SVP Product, Publisher – DoubleVerify

All forms of digital video advertising are growing rapidly. According to the IAB, the digital video channel has grown over 50% since last year. This is largely being driven by the surge of users who are now enjoying a variety of streaming and digital video offerings online, with CTV being the most recent beneficiary. And with Nextflix planning to get in on the game with an AVOD offering, this space is only going to get hotter.

Brands hoping to reach these audiences are spending more than ever. But continued growth relies on transparency and measurement becoming a core pillar of how these channels operate. Publishers looking to capture higher CPMs and brands seeking increased exposure through CTV and video must advance measurement efforts to improve optimization opportunities and performance.

Online video measurement shows the path CTV must take

Some progress has been made on the measurement front. Through VAST, and later VPAID and Open Measurement development, new measurement standards and tools have become available that improve performance and revenue. While there is still more work to be done, it’s clear that measurement has helped this channel mature to drive results for buyers and sellers.

The measurement challenges for CTV are not new. As we’ve seen with online video over the past decade, measurability improvements have led to ad performance gains over time, benefiting buyers and sellers alike. If history were to repeat itself, publishers benefit most when they expand their tech stack and data tools to benefit from improved measurement as it becomes available.

CTV limitations highlight opportunity for publisher adoption

While millions of users flock to CTV, the industry is building out the required infrastructure to ensure additional advertising inflows. One of these has been particularly difficult to implement: viewability.

VPAID, which enables viewability measurement in online video, is still not fully adopted by the industry. Less than 40% of desktop and mobile impressions support VPAID and it is not supported at all on CTV, mostly due to its own limitations that the industry wants to move away from. New standards for viewability such as Open Measurement are not yet supportive of CTV as a channel. We’re working on this, through tools like Fully On-Screen measurement, which is designed to help buyers more roughly understand whether their ads are actually being seen. However, is more work to be done before brands feel comfortable moving large portions of their budgets to CTV.

Case Study:
How audibility and viewability work together to improve ad recall and brand awareness

As just one example to illustrate how measurement advances can benefit the industry, let’s look into the case of audibility measurement for video advertising. A Google study based on YouTube indicated that an audible and viewable ad saw a 1.6x improvement in brand awareness over an ad that is only viewable, and a 3.8x improvement over an ad that is only audible.

Given these results and what we’re hearing from clients, we’ve learned how audibility measurement can improve publisher revenue when it’s properly taken into account and optimized against. By expanding access to these metrics in alongside CTV metrics such as fully on-screen insights, buyers and sellers can expand the shared language of data that accomplishes performance and revenue goals.

In these nascent stages of measurement innovation on new channels, publishers have an opportunity to provide value to brands looking to feel more secure in their ad spend. Whether it’s through fully on-screen measurement, audibility or other metrics, publishers can begin optimizing performance today.

In DoubleVerify’s work with advertisers and publishers, we are developing more video-level transparency for toolkits on both sides of the industry. Since standardization is set to follow new measurement technology, buyers will look to these tools as a way of measuring KPIs. Instead of waiting for this to take place, proactive teams can use these tools to improve ad quality and performance before the competition.