Are brands any safer? Is programmatic ad buying any more transparent?

A little more than a year ago, in January 2017, Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, threw down a gauntlet. Frustrated by increasing instances of frauds, breaches, sloppy executions and potentially shady markups, Pritchard posed a historic dare to digital advertisers to either “grow up” or P&G would pull their ads. In addition to a thorough review of media-agency contracts, Pritchard demanded industry-standard viewability metrics, fraud protection and third-party verification.

It was just a sign that brands were fed up. In March 2017, more than 250 advertisers boycotted Google and YouTube after ads were reported showing up next to extremist videos on YouTube. P&G itself pulled more than $140 million in digital advertising, citing concerns about lack of transparency and peril to brand safety.

[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]

About The Author

Robin Kurzer started her career as a daily newspaper reporter in Milford, Connecticut. She then made her mark on the advertising and marketing world in Chicago at agencies such as Tribal DDB and Razorfish, creating award-winning work for many major brands. For the past seven years, she’s worked as a freelance writer and communications professional across a variety of business sectors.