Facebook and Instagram have attained Jicwebs brand-safety accreditation after an audit of their advertising processes and how they adhere to the cross-industry body’s good-practice principles.
The good-practice principles of Jicwebs’ Digital Trading Standards Group are the UK’s industry standard for brand safety and are intended to minimise the risk of advertising being served alongside offensive content. Both Google and eBay are signatories that are currently in the process of being audited.
Steve Hatch, Facebook’s vice-president of northern Europe, said: “It is vital that advertisers can trust where their ads are appearing and we are fully behind the industry’s desire to raise standards in digital advertising. We support Jicwebs’ robust standards, rigorous verification process and the industry transparency it provides, and are delighted to have achieved DTSG brand-safety certification.”
The DTSG certification is a requirement to achieve the Internet Advertising Bureau UK gold standard. It forms part of the Association for Online Publishing’s ad-quality charter and is included in ISBA’s media services framework.
Last year, the House of Lords Communications Committee called on all industry bodies to sign up to Jicwebs. To date, more than 130 organisations have done so, including Amazon, which received its certification in July.
IAB chief executive Jon Mew added that DTSG certification was a “key requirement of its gold standard”.
He said: “This verification of Facebook and Instagram is significant, offering increased transparency of the platform through a clear report detailing how they reduce the risk of ad misplacement.”
Jules Kendrick, Jicwebs’ chief executive, said that the certification demonstrated to advertisers which companies were committed to protecting their marketing investment.
“We hope all parts of the supply chain will share the same level of detail through our certification scheme,” she added.