The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has released a statement, as a pre-emptive measure, to urge both advertisers and ad platforms to ensure that digital advertising dollars are not supporting “bad actors” or misinformation in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The AANA is a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising.
AANA CEO Julie Flynn said: “We encourage everyone to follow the suggestions from the GARM initiative and are confident Australian advertisers, and their media agencies, are committed to avoiding the acceleration or funding of harmful content.”
The guidance to ad buyers and sellers stated:
Step 1 – Restrict bad actor access to ecosystem:
- If you’re an ad seller: State actors and their affiliates and support networks must be closed off from users where possible and demonetised without a doubt. Thankfully the EU has emboldened the action here, and the supply side should continue to take steps here.
- If you’re an ad buyer: Consider restricting where you buy and how you buy. Indirect buying via programmatic must be scrutinised to the fullest extent. Indices within indices that can obscure outlets, where bad actors play a ‘game of submarining’ should be removed. Ask your partners what they are doing to chase misinformation off their platform, how they are managing their own inclusion and exclusions lists for monetisation.
Step 2 – Tighten your monetisation criteria:
- If you’re an ad seller: You should be restricting monetisation now. We know all too well from previous elections that states can be sophisticated in propping up accounts. If you monetise content and channels please review criteria, if you monetise users consider category exclusions, and consider some of the steps expressed in the bold moves shared above.
Step 3 – Protect ad buys at scale with lists and precision keywords:
- If you’re an ad buyer: Now is a great time to revisit and refresh your keyword list. In the words of our agency experts and some of the platforms – treat it like a search engine query. Also ensure that you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI – both partners to GARM and many of WFA’s members. Work to calibrate campaign-level responses regionally.
Step 4 – Directly support the good via an inclusion list:
- If you’re an ad seller: Continue to give a leg up to professional news outlets – again NewsGuard, GDI, JTI/RSF – can help ensure that ad buyers and users looking for news can be in safe and suitable places.
- If you’re an ad buyer: Support your preferred news outlets and drive your organisation’s approach to news into action.
Step 5 – Manage, measure and assess implementation
- This one is for everyone: Our gold standard approach for brand safety is pre-bid screening based on the GARM Safety Floor and Suitability Framework, in-stream blocking, post-buy transparency, post-campaign analysis. This is our end-to-end control and visibility the industry requires. Very few partners have all of these elements lined up – but now is as good a time as any to see did the plan and the buy match – and if not, how can we adjust things to make them match better?