How COVID-19 exposed limits in brand safety – and showed sentiment and context matter

Jo Bowman

Marketers may need to expand ideas of brand safety by looking beyond keyword-based approaches to better understand the context and sentiment of the content their ads are placed alongside.

The arrival of COVID-19 disrupted numerous aspects of the marketing process, including traditional strategies for maintaining brand safety online.

Chance Johnson, chief revenue officer at ad-tech firm Integral Ad Science (IAS), noted that at the beginning of the pandemic, between 30% and 40% of all new online articles referred to COVID-19 – the sort of negative event many brands may decide to avoid when placing their ads.

“So, if you were taking the traditional approach to brand safety and an advertiser said, ‘Hey, you know, that's not something I want to be around’, you're going to miss out on 40%...

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