More advertisers in the APAC region are assessing “brand suitability” as a brand safety measure when running media campaigns on certain websites, according to a new report by DoubleVerify.
The digital media measurement company’s Brand Suitability Incident Rate records instances of ads being served on sites or apps, or adjacent to unsuitable content that does not meet a brand’s parameters. Not all advertisers choose to block all brand suitability violations – they may be more interested in simply gaining transparency into incidents and using this data to inform their media strategy. When ads are blocked, this is called the Brand Suitability Block Rate. The overall Brand Suitability Rate is the combination of incidents and blocks.
The APAC region reported a higher overall Brand Suitability Rate than most other regions – up 66% in the year to 11.4%, compared to growth rates of 24% in EMEA and 11% in North America. This trend was led by high Brand Suitability Rates in both Malaysia and the Philippines.
However, the post-bid fraud rate declined 49% YoY, most likely due to the increased usage of pre-bid fraud protection. The steepest dip in YoY rates was in India, where post-bid fraud incidents declined by 81%.
The viewable rate improved YoY for display (2020: 59%, 2019: 54%) and was flat for video (2020: 66%, 2019: 66%). Overall video viewability remained relatively stable – although the rate for Malaysia rose by 78%, Vietnam by 31%, and Australia by 14%, and mobile app video viewability rose by 48% overall.
The media measurement company credited the sharp increase in overall brand suitability in APAC, due to the region’s initial focus on reducing ad fraud across websites, apps and connected TV (CTV). Interestingly the APAC region recorded a significant decline in the fraud rate for mobile apps (-85%) but recorded a sizeable uptick in desktop fraud (+33%).
Jordan Khoo, managing director, APAC at DoubleVerify noted that the report shows that while brands in APAC are just setting out on the path of establishing the right parameters for brand suitability and targeting, they are aware they can secure better control over their digital advertising.
“The focus for the next year will be to ensure that ad impressions are properly authenticated, and that media quality and brand suitability is top of mind for advertisers,” he added.
The report analysed data from advertisers representing over 2,000 brands across 80 countries, from May 2019 to April 2020.
Sourced from DoubleVerify
