• OpenSlate Releases Post-Campaign Brand Safety Solution for YouTube

    OpenSlate, which helps online video ad buyers understand YouTube content in order to plan and optimize their ad spending, has released a post-campaign brand safety auditing solution. The new solution leverages the same data set OpenSlate has collected on 350 million plus YouTube videos, allowing buyers to close the loop and better understand how their campaigns delivered against brand safety parameters.

    OpenSlate’s CMO Andrea Ching told me that the auditing solution can be accessed as a standalone module or in connection with OpenSlate’s media planning. Either way, the solution can be customized based on an advertiser’s specific brand safety parameters. Andrea noted that while some brand safety parameters are universal (e.g. hate speech, violence, etc.) many more are subjective to each advertiser. The auditing solution gives buyers transparency on how well YouTube ad delivery matched up with their specific brand safety goals.

    Andrea said that GroupM, with which OpenSlate announced a brand safety partnership earlier this year, has been using the new auditing solution, which is now being offered broadly to the entire market. Today’s release included supporting quotes from executives at GroupM, Horizon Media, Dentsu Aegis and Publicis Media Precision.

    Brand safety has been an issue for the entire online video industry but for YouTube in particular, since last March, when reports surfaced of major brands’ ads running against hateful content. The news caused many advertisers to suspend their YouTube campaigns although many have returned since, including Verizon, which was one of the highest profile brands that hit the pause button. For its part, Google said in its Q2 earnings that YouTube advertisers had rebounded. YouTube has also been using machine learning to better filter hateful content.

    Brand safety will continue to be an industry focus as TV-centric ad buyers insist on the same degree of quality they’ve grown accustomed to in TV. As viewership continues to migrate to online and mobile, advertisers have no choice but to follow in order to continue reaching desired audiences. All of this means that planning and auditing YouTube campaigns will grow in importance, a positive for OpenSlate.