IAS handling Brand Safety for YouTube

Integral Ad Science (IAS) is working with Google to deliver brand safety reporting on YouTube. With brand safety concerns at the forefront for advertisers, Google and IAS are looking to give advertisers additional visibility into how their ads are appearing on YouTube against a company’s brand safety requirements.

With this initiative, advertisers will be able to access brand safety reporting metrics, providing additional, independent assurances around where their ads are appearing on YouTube. Given the uniqueness of YouTube’s content, and that of the experience it provides to users, IAS and Google will seek to develop a secure and safe solution together that answers the industry’s need for transparency.

The current IAS solution available to clients is MRC-accredited, and reports on eight separate brand risk categories – adult content, alcohol content, gambling content, hate speech, illegal downloads, illegal drugs, offensive language, and violence – to give advertisers a comprehensive understanding of their brand risk. Additional specifications are available to customize risk thresholds, as well as option for geo-compliance, keywords, and blacklists.

“Our H2 2016 Media Quality Report show that brand risk continues to be a key area of concern for advertisers, especially as it pertains to politically charged, controversial, or offensive content. Content flagged for hate speech increased by 137% across U.S. display direct and for violence by 27% global video direct from H1 2016 alone.” said Scott Knoll, CEO of IAS. “Your brand is your reputation and Google is taking the right steps forward to address this industry issue. By partnering with independent, third parties like IAS, advertisers have additional assurance and more visibility into where their ads are running.”