One of the greatest positives of living in a hyper-connected digital world where information is readily accessible, is the ease with which consumers can actively move their business from one brand to another. We've all benefited at some point, from being able to compile information to affirm or change our perception of a brand, whereby we then make a decision about whether we want to interact with that brand, or not – and then easily find several others offering the same service that we would much rather engage with.

This has resulted in brands needing to adhere to something of a peer-and-consumer-defined operational and ethical standard for their activity - including for their advertising and marketing. It should therefore come as no surprise to advertising and marketing professionals that brands are making efforts to provide honest and robust value-exchanges to their consumers - and have been doing so for many years with the help of leading agencies. It may be important to consider that 'value' in this example may be considered as; not only the commercial interaction, but also the ethical value conferred upon the interaction by the consumer. Brand safety and advertising considerations are therefore increasingly key to thinking and decision making. As we have seen, many brands are pivoting so that these factors hold more weight in campaign planning than short-term revenue objectives.

The Cost of Funding Misinformation

One of the greatest negatives of living in a hyper-connected digital world, where information is readily accessible, is the widespread ease of exposure to fake news, disinformation and misinformation. In fact, as suggested in a report from the University of Baltimore and the cyber-security company CHEQ, Fake News carries a global cost of $78bn a year, before considering reputational damage, or the parallel effect of undermining democracy. In line with the need to retain consumer favour for continuation of their support, brands and advertisers increasingly need to put measures in place to combat these key issues, seeking to actively control where their messaging appears and what it appears against.

For example, it could potentially be damaging for a manufacturer trying to build a reputation of environmental sustainability who inadvertently funds climate change denial content by paying for advertising space where such content appears – consumers may not understand that this is likely to have been an accident, as they expect brands to be in control of their activity as a core ticket-to-entry for winning their support and interactions. With so many brands out there offering the same services at the similar prices, there may not be room for mistakes or accidents, meaning active planning should be put in place for these eventualities to prevent commercial ramifications of poorly deployed advertising and marketing.

As is topical at the moment, a good test for brands currently exists in how they are reacting to the plethora of fake content surrounding Covid-19, in terms of modifying their marketing and advertising activity to ensure they are not funding misinformation or disinformation content. Now more than ever, fake news and its spread may have the capacity to truly cause real-life consequences for our health and the health of our loved ones. We are seeing a wealth of fake content, such as the Bill Gates letter, rapidly propagating across social media in particular, with some seemingly reputable and wholesome brands still presenting advertisements against it and unwittingly funding its continuation. Worse still is the fact that we live in a world with ever increasing digital literacy, meaning tech-savvy profiteers are setting up digital properties to exploit the commercial element of supplying fake content around Covid-19. The Covid-19 scam and malware website issue is now so prevalent in New York that lawmakers are pursuing crackdowns on domain registrations.

A Great Test for the Marketing and Advertising Industry

I discussed this with Harriet Kingaby, 2019 Mozilla Fellow and Co-Chair of the Conscious Advertising Network, who posited that “this is a great test for the marketing and advertising industry - can we play a role in ensuring a responsible media environment and flow of information at a time of international crisis? We should be looking carefully at advertising spend, to ensure that those that need it receive it, and that bad actors can't make a fortune from it”. Harriet further suggested that “we should be advising brands to reward factual, hard-news sites doing good reporting around Covid-19, and remove spend from platforms that are actively promoting fake news or down playing the level of the crisis. Perhaps, for example, by creating blocklists for certain terms associated with 'cures' or terms that could potentially result in damaging content being supplied from online searches - even to the point of considering blocklists for specific prominent languages in our communities, to ensure all avenues are covered”.

In line with the Conscious Advertising Network’s manifesto suggestions, it is important now more than ever that brands and advertisers use a range of verification tools and procedures to manage advertising against fake content, and advertising issues in general; the use of brand safety and issue management procedures is something that the team at Merkle is highly proactive in delivering already, with a dedicated sub-team that constantly reviews best practices being a core component of digital media delivery functioning. There should be a heavy reliance of compiling lists of reputable publishers and sites that support responsible and high-quality content, including for journalism, in an active effort to resolve the problem of fake news, disinformation and misinformation. Longer-term, such efforts may form a trusted partner list that can be deployed with greater scale in all future activity, not just confined to responding to a hopefully short-lived crisis. Ensuring that quality content and journalism continues to be funded through advertising is just one role advertisers can play, at a time that we need it most. No advertiser wants to inadvertently fund fake news or irresponsible journalism, or the distortion of public discourse through fake online content, but, by embedding good practices, we can be part of the solution. Read our part two for details on how agencies, brands and verification partners can come together to advance brand safety moving forwards.