Safe Ad Spaces: Consumers More Trusting Of Brands Around Appropriate Content

A recent study on brand safety and the content consumers consider unsafe is also shedding light on brand support of journalism and misinformation.

Integral Ad Science’s “The State of Brand Safety” found that four out of every five consumers (82%) believe content surrounding online ads should be appropriate, while 69% say the amount of inappropriate content (from hate speech and explicit content to misinformation and spam) has increased in the last year.

And when brands advertise near inappropriate content, consumers notice; 71% of consumers have less favorable feelings towards those brands, 70% say they trust the brands less, and 51% are likely to stop using the products or services.

“Between a rapidly evolving media landscape and booming content growth, marketers are increasingly invested in protecting their brand’s reputation and allocating media budgets toward content that minimizes the risk to their brand,” the study says.

(Source: IAS)

In terms of being receptive to advertising, consumers ranked shopping sites slightly ahead of news sites and social media sites. Insider Intelligence pointed out that “no type of website ranked above 36%, showing consumers aren’t eager to see ads,” but consumers did have strong feelings about what ad money should do.

74% said it was important that ad-funding support responsible journalism, and almost as many (70%) said they were “likely to trust a brand whose ads appear on credible news sites.”

IAS suggests brands set up suitability controls to avoid risky content and tailor the appropriateness of various contexts, saying “contextual targeting gives programmatic buyers unprecedented precision for targeting content to increase recognition and engagement.”