Brand Safety and Coronavirus-related Content on News Sites

Despite online publications seeing huge jumps in traffic due to the constant demand for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic, ad revenue continues to decline. This is largely due to advertisers and ad-tech companies preventing their advertisements from running alongside corona-virus related content. With the crisis having become the dominant global story, one that’s poised to continue for at least the coming months, parts of the news industry face an existential threat if advertisers continue to stay away. An ad verification company said that coronavirus is now its most-blocked keyword.

Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, wrote an open letter urging advertising technology companies to exempt “premium, trusted media properties” from brand safety filters around COVID-19 and related terms. Ryan Pauley, chief revenue officer at Vox Media, expressed his dissent: “The fact that a high percentage of articles are being flagged as brand unsafe across premium news outlets like the New York Times or Vox is a misapplication of generic ‘brand safety’ concerns.” Jerry Daykin, senior media director of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region for GSK ,said that brand safety measures are important to prevent funding hate speech or misinformation, but “there really is very little actual brand safety issue on high-quality sites.”

If you have any experiences or metrics that would support these elements, we would love to hear from you.

We're a group of graduate business students exploring the importance of local newspapers and news sites, with a focus on sustainability and related business practices. We're hoping to build a community of stakeholders to help and support our research. Please reach out if you're available for an interview to share your thoughts and experiences on the topic.

Read full article at: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/29/news-sites-ask-brands-to-get-advertise-alongside-covid-19-content.html