At the recent 4As Transformation, P&G Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard called upon brands to step up when it comes to brand safety:
"Step up on brand safety. We hold agencies and publishers equally responsible for placing our ads only where they belong, and keeping them away from objectionable content. We have a zero-tolerance standard when it comes to brand safety.”
The reality is that the recent shockwaves over brand safety were preceded by ripples on other heated topics, such as viewability, fraud, accountability and transparency.
The conversation about “stepping up” is bigger than brand safety alone (and, to be fair to Mr. Pritchard, his remarks went far beyond brand safety). While Sightly is not in a position to wax poetic about each facet of digital advertising as it pertains to this issue, we are experts in one: Performance Video. In this realm, Sightly is already ensuring brand safety, viewability, accountability, and transparency are baked into our strategy and platform. And rightfully so – because delivering Performance Video is how we get paid.
Sightly’s design ensures that the advertiser’s targeted audience is delivered and its KPIs are hit. Along with it, viewability, accountability, brand safety, and more. Here’s how:
- Bespoke campaigns are designed for accuracy. Rather than use an algorithm to choose the hottest 5% of inventory, we “narrowcast at scale,” amplifying buys that are designed for a single advertiser. Our system is designed for accuracy, while still implementing at scale.
- Precise “people-centered” targeting connects brands to desired real people. We create and amplify campaigns that are targeted by personas based on Google’s first party segments. Whether pinpointing soccer moms or Millennials, using custom designed personas is one technique that inherently delivers ads exclusively to a desired audience.
- Personalized ads are mandatory in a personalized world. Personalizing ads by message, location or offer, not only increases campaign performance, but also amps-up relevance. After all, ours is a personalized world. We personalize Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and LinkedIn to name a few. All content must be relevant an individual because relevance is a basic expectation of consumers.
- Endless details in the targeting “special sauce” deliver performance and safety. Beyond our People-Centered Targeting techniques, Sightly employs keywords, brand search criteria, past website visits, video viewing patterns, mobile app usage, and other criteria, to further ensure brands advertise to audiences they desire, and who want them.
- Human involvement is the ultimate check-and-balance. Our platform isn’t entirely automated, there is human involvement. That’s required since sometimes content that can go awry with a bot (like fake news did), but it wouldn’t pass the human sniff test.
- Build-in content exclusions steers brands clear of objectionable material. In addition to the built-in filtering that comes with targeting and human intervention, we also make use of numerous exclusions. Sightly excludes questionable content that is related to tragedies and conflicts, sensitive social issues and more. We steer clear of topics like social issues, religion and certain types of video games.
- Optimization never tires. Employing optimization across all aspects of the purchase funnel ultimately guides audiences to consideration and intent – driving results.
- Third-party verification is embedded. Ad placement quality and safety, viewability, and audience targeting accuracy are all verified by industry-leading, third party sources, such as Moat, Nielsen, and MillwardBrown Digital.
Here’s the thing – many think the conversation around “brand safety” is exclusive to YouTube. But it’s not. FOX News is going through its own brand safety crisis right now. The same standard of quality and safety that applies to television can and does apply to digital video. We are happy to work with YouTube and our other partners to lead the conversation.
Many advertisers think of YouTube for its scale, and rightfully so - with one billion users, you need to advertise on YouTube. But fewer fully leverage YouTube’s lesser-known– but just as powerful – ability to narrowcast and deliver very personalized, localized ads to extremely targeted audiences. Performance Video is how this is done. And it’s how hundreds of brands are enjoying inherent brand safety, viewability, accountability, and, above all, campaign success.
View Sightly’s BEFORE and AFTER reel to see how marketers reach consumers in the moments that matter.
