Clients demand more control on ads

Client marketers have turned the tables on online brands by demanding greater control over where their ads are placed, as more and more companies join the advertiser exodus from Ask.fm.
Speaking on ITV News, ISBA director of media and advertising Bob Wootton conceded that most advertisers still had little or no control over the content their ads were placed against online.
He said advertising investment should not come at the cost of those brands being tarnished. Wootton added: “The technology exists to serve anonymised consumers with well-targeted ads, so surely applying this technology to protect adverts from appearing on undesirable social media pages or inappropriate websites is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”
The calls follows a mass exodus of advertisers from Ask.fm, after it was linked to the suicide of cyberbullying victim Hannah Smith.
Big brands ditching the site include Vodafone, Specsavers, BT, EDF Energy, Laura Ashley, and Save the Children, whose case of is all the more pertinent as the charity did not even know Ask.fm was in its advertising schedule.
Wootton said: “Purely from an advertiser-safety point of view, these tragic events demonstrate how little control advertisers sometimes have over where their ads can appear. Advertisers are clearly very concerned about the unintended placement of the brands they invest millions in protecting and promoting, and it is quite understandable that companies are now withdrawing their advertising from Ask.fm.”
The issue of ad placement has come to the fore in recent weeks following threats by some brands to boycott Facebook after their ads ran alongside offensive content.
ISBA welcomed plans by the social media site to review the process that determines which ads are be placed against specific content on its pages. It has been reported that a new system will grade thousands of pages to determine which are appropriate for placing ads.
Wootton concluded: “We hope other sites will follow Facebook’s lead in tackling this challenge.”

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