Top brands pull ads from Mumsnet as air turns blue

Mumsnet has become the latest social networking site to face the wrath of its advertisers following a backlash led by the the National Trust, Confused.com and fashion label Bulgari over their ads appearing against “offensive” language on the site.
The company has said that while it is not “over prudish” about swearing, it advises users to “keep foul and abusive language to a minimum”. It does not pre-approve posts on forums but uses discretion to delete content that is inappropriate.
A spokeswoman told The Times: “It’s not our policy to delete swear words but we do draw the line at obscenity, racist, ageist, disablist, homophobic or transphobic language, and wording that is beyond the pale.”
However, the widespread use of expletives in some forum discussions – where mums go to vent their spleen – has irked some brands, which are now demanding that Mumsnet is pulled from their programmatic schedules.
A National Trust spokesman said: “We regularly monitor the external environment to ensure that our ads are being positioned alongside the right sort of content and therefore we will aim to address this issue by requesting that our ads do not appear alongside these swear words.
Meanwhile a spokesman for Confused.com, added: “We take brand safety extremely seriously. We have measures in place to prevent our banners from appearing on any page that is deemed offensive in any way, for example, sites containing violence, profanity, adult themes, etc. Every impression that we serve is in realtime and on this occasion it seems to have slipped through the net.”

TOPICS:brand safety confused.com Mumsnet National Trust