Once a legitimate effort to protect advertisers from harmful content, brand safety today has morphed into a broken, automated system that routinely blocks ads from legitimate news stories. As the report aims to illustrate, the global news industry loses billions in revenue each year to blunt keyword filters and outdated verification tools that mistake context for risk, says INMA.

Written by INMA Advertising Initiative Lead Gabriel Dorosz, the report aims to detail how early brand-safety systems emerged to combat genuine threats — such as extremist or violent content — but now penalise quality journalism, adds INMA.

The report looks at the problem of how brand safety demonetises news, then offers solutions for how publishers move forward, says INMA.

Legacy verification vendors and processes depend on rigid keyword blocklists that flag words like, "death", "shoot" or "feminist", regardless of context. A tennis "shot" and a "mass shooting" trigger the same block, stripping ads from credible reporting, adds INMA.

According to Dorosz, the damage is measurable:

  • United States publishers lost an estimated USD$2.8-billion in 2019 to over-blocking.
  • Black-owned publishers have seen as much as 75% of their traffic blocked.
  • Even harmless content, such as Time's Person of the Year feature, has been marked unsafe.

Despite industry belief, there is little to no peer-reviewed evidence that advertising near news harms brands. In fact, the report finds the opposite is true content, offer publishers a pragmatic road, says INMA.

The report aims to point to a new generation of AI-powered contextual tools, such as Mobian, Mantis and Illuma, that analyse full content, tone and sentiment to distinguish between risk and relevance:

  • Newsweek found 98% of content brand-safe with Mobian versus 63% under traditional filters.
  • Immediate Media unlocked 50% more ad delivery using Mantis.
  • News UK increased brand-safe inventory 20% with Illuma.

These tools, combined with strong data evidence and strategic diversification into lifestyle, gaming and video content, aims to offer publishers a pragmatic road map to recovery, says INMA.

The INMA report aims to outlines three immediate priorities for publishers:

  • Deploy Smarter Technology: Replace keyword blocking with AI tools that understand nuance and sentiment.
  • Arm Sales Teams With Evidence: Use new research to challenge myths about advertising adjacency.
  • Diversify Strategically: Expand into brand-safe verticals and package them for advertiser appeal.

"Brand safety is not an existential threat; it's a solvable market failure," says Earl J. Wilkinson, CEO and Executive Director of INMA. "Armed with AI, performance data and new storytelling formats, publishers can reclaim lost revenue and reshape how advertisers value journalism."

How News Advertising Reclaims the Brand Safety Narrative is available for free to INMA members and for purchase by non-members, concludes INMA.

For more information, visit www.inma.org. 

*Image courtesy of contributor