Brand Safety: How brands can recover from scandal

According to Peer39 CEO Amiad Solomon the key to recovering from scandal is to invest time and money.

"A brand can certainly recover, but it is time consuming and money consuming," said Mr. Solomon. "Poorly placed ads can undo years of work on the part of a brand. It is a tall mountain to climb back up in order to restore the image of a brand to the public once it has been associated with scandal."

One way to get started: stick with semantics. You can't change the past but taking immediate action should remove ads located near inappropriate content and place them near appropriate content.

"Semantic algorithms can recognize the true meaning of a page of content by analyzing associations between words and phrases in web text. A basic example is the ability to distinguish between 'jaguar' the animal and 'Jaguar' the automobile by semantically analyzing the structure of the sentence, paragraph and document in which the words appear in," said Mr. Solomon. "Semantics uses this capability dozens of times per page, for every page on a web site. Once the overall subject of a web page has been defined and the URL classified, a semantic system sends the most relevant and appropriate set of ads to that page."

We'll go back to that golf analogy. If an advertiser used the keyword "Tiger Woods" to place ads for new golf balls, there is a good chance the ads were placed near content about the scandal. By removing that broad keyword and placing the ads semantically, the content of the site would come into play. That should remove the ad from the inappropriate content and, instead, place ads near content about Woods' golf prowess.

"Semantics guarantees that every impression is an informed impression. Each ad runs only next to the most relevant and pertinent text," said Mr. Solomon. "No ad is wasted or served in a place where it does not belong. Semantics ensures that every ad impression counts, and maximizes the possibility of user engagement. We saw a 50% to 200% increase in the effectiveness of campaigns that target using semantic data, using a consumer engagement metric, compared to [ads] using a different targeting technology."

You can read part one of my Brand Safety series, Preparing for Scandal, here.

Tags: brand safety, content rating, online advertising, online content, Peer39, semantic advertising, semantics, Tiger Woods