More brand safety bullshit

20 January 2018

There's enough bullshit on the Internet already, but I'm afraid I'm going to quote some more. This time from Ilyse Liffreing at IBM.

The reality is none of us can say with certainty that anywhere in the world, we are [brand] safe. Look what just happened with YouTube. They are working on fixing it, but even Facebook and Google themselves have said there’s not much they can do about it. I mean, it’s hard. It’s not black and white. We are putting a lot of money in it, and pull back on channels where we have concerns. We’ve had good talks with the YouTube teams.

Bullshit.

One important part of this decision is black and white.

Either you give money to Nazis.

Or you don't give money to Nazis.

If Nazis are better at "programmatic" than the resting-and-vesting chill bros at the programmatic ad firms (and, face it, Nazis kick ass at programmatic), then the choice to spend ad money in a we're-kind-of-not-sure-if-this-goes-to-Nazis-or-not way is a choice that puts your brand on the wrong side of a black and white line.

There are plenty of Nazi-free places for brands to run ads. They might not be the cheapest. But I know which side of the line I buy from.