The Media Leader Podcast
Terry Hornsby, founder and executive vice-president of Mantis, joins Jack Benjamin to discuss how keyword blocklists remain in use by advertisers to the detriment of publishers.
Hornsby explains that blocklisting is being used irresponsibly by too many advertisers, many of which often add words to their blocklists without sufficiently checking which words may be worth taking off.
These could include adding “Paris” after the 2015 terrorist attacks or “Taylor Swift” after her Vienna concert was nearly attacked, then never remembering to take those off.
The result? Publishers having much of their brand safe work demonitised.
Hornsby discusses why this keeps occurring and what needs to change for publishers to earn revenue on articles that brands would in fact want to advertise against.
This episode was recorded earlier this summer, before the Paris Olympic Games occurred.
Listen now by hitting the play button or use the appropriate entry point into Spotify, Apple or Google Podcasts:
Highlights
2:00: Why Hornsby founded Mantis
5:12: The problem with keyword-blocking
11:38: Are brands being too cautious?
19:54: The importance of contextual advertising regardless of the future of the cookie
26:41: Other brand-safety verification vendors
29:23: What needs to change?
Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.
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