Brand Safety & Suitability Capability [REPORT]

MMA Global, the association devoted to architecting the future of marketing for CMOs, will release their Brand Safety and Suitability Strategy Guide tomorrow, during their fifth and final Brand Safety Webinar, entitled: The Impact and Future of Brand Safety: What should you lookout for? Both the webinar and the guide are available free of charge.

The most comprehensive guide of its kind to date, it includes worksheets and exercises designed to help senior marketers create and lead a capability that will ensure they are well prepared to manage and mitigate any brand safety and suitability concerns as the arise. The guide demonstrates the value of establishing and ensuring a proactive safety and suitability strategy, as well as transparency in communication and accountability among relevant stakeholders.

“In recent years, marketers have begun focusing on brand safety and suitability as a way of protecting their most valuable assets – brand reputation and potential customer long-term value,” said Greg Stuart, Global CEO of MMA. “My read is that not all marketers have established brand safety and suitability principles and practices not because they don’t think important, but because the expertise didn’t exist in-house and the CMO didn’t have the experience. As MMA has done previously for CMOs in Multi-Touch Attribution adoption, modern Growth Strategies, Identity Frameworks, Marketing Org Redesign and most recently around Data Maturity, this guide supports making better decisions more quickly. Thanks to this highly-detailed guide – which is free to everyone – marketers will have the tools they need to do just that.”

Created for marketers by marketers, the guide can be used to identify and anticipate brand safety and suitability challenges, develop proactive responses when these threats emerge, and build a resilient infrastructure within organizations to deal with new threats as they emerge.

Participating in the development of the guide were marketing leaders from the following organizations: A Place For Mom, AT&T, Bank of America, CVS, General Motors, Marriott, Molson Coors, Travelers and UM Worldwide.

“The MMA’s Brand Safety and Suitability Strategy Guide provides critical guidance for marketers on how to navigate brand safety, from understanding the issue to identifying standards and values to managing and audit for compliance—and respond if an incident occurs.” Joshua Lowcock, EVP, Chief Digital Officer, UM Worldwide

Unprecedented Breadth

The all-encompassing guide is comprised of the following nine chapters designed to provide insights and best practices to assist marketers at each step of the way on their journey to implement their own brand safety and suitability practice:

• What is Brand Safety and Suitability and Why Does It Matter?
• Stakeholder Roles & Responsibilities
• Determine Your Brand Safety Standards
• Resources And Budgeting for Brand Safety
• Brand Safety Tool Selection & Assessment
• Brand Safety Vendor Selection & Management
• Crisis Management Process
• Governance & Performance Management
• The Future of Brand Safety?

“Regardless of where marketers find themselves on the journey of implementing a brand safety and suitability practice, I believe they will find real utility in this comprehensive guide,” said Lou Paskalis, President and Chief Operating Officer of MMA Global. “It will spark new ideas to help facilitate stakeholder conversations, build consensus around brand safety and suitability principles that reflect enterprise values and iterate on best practices amidst a rapidly changing landscape. I think it’s fair to say the guide is crucial to any marketer attempting to create or improve their readiness to respond to issues in the area of brand safety and suitability.”

Moving Forward

All are welcome to attend the fifth and final Brand Safety Webinar tomorrow as well as view all previous Webinars in the series, free of charge. Co-moderated by Neal Thurman, co-Founder of the Brand Safety Institute (BSI), and sponsored by Twitter, this educational series is brought to life by marketers sharing peer-to-peer best practices and actionable insights.

“The partnership between the MMA and BSI is intended to help support marketers as they look to take more direct control of the various elements of brand safety,” said Thurman.

“At Twitter, we recognize the importance of keeping platforms safe, and that by keeping people safe, we keep brands safe too,” said Sarah Personette, Chief Customer Officer of Twitter and MMA Global Board Member. “We also know the challenges that come with brand safety and the importance of education to help equip brands to tackle these issues, particularly in this ever-changing ecosystem. We can’t tackle these issues alone, which is why we partner with industry leaders, such as the MMA, to challenge us, and the industry, to become a safer place for everyone.”

In addition to the webinar series, the MMA and BSI have also teamed up on the Brand Safe Workforce Pilot Program where individuals can be certified as a Brand Safety Officer™.

“By participating in the program, brands can demonstrate their commitment to brand safety by providing brand safety training, certification and resources across their organization,” added Thurman. “All MMA members receive a 25% discount by using the MMA’s partner code, MMABrandSafety, when registering for their Brand Safety Officer™.”

“The MMA is pleased to make this guide available to all marketers and stakeholders in the advertising community free of charge in an effort to advance our shared mission to make the digital ecosystem a safer, more wholesome place for consumers and marketers to come together,” Paskalis added.

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