Hennessy addressing the audience at the Mediatel and Ezoic debate
Despite numerous brands making headlines recently after their ads were found appearing alongside extremist content, it seems many clients remain unfazed – and would still rather chase scale over quality of environment or context.
Speaking at a Mediatel and Ezoic breakfast on Tuesday, MEC’s managing director, Sarah Hennessy, said client demands still lead the agency to the unrivalled scale of big players such as Facebook and Google, while concerns over context tend to take a back seat.
It means premium publishers perhaps still have some way to go in convincing advertisers of their proven effectiveness as advertising platforms – or need to find new ways to boost scale.
“The challenges for publishers, premium or not, is the scale side of the equation,” Hennessy said.
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“There’s pressure on agencies to deliver outcomes for clients at a certain level, and therefore we’re going to find the best outcome for that.”
Earlier this year The Times revealed that brands, including Mercedes-Benz, Waitrose and Marie Curie, all had ads being programmatically served alongside extremist content on Google-owned YouTube.
Many brands quickly pulled their budgets, but it has been too soon to tell if there will be any lasting change in attitude from advertisers.
“At the moment [clients are] just worried they’re going to be in a headline of The Times – which is a good thing because until advertisers are named for being involved in that kind of activity, they won’t do anything different,” she said.
“When a client is named it starts to create change and that change filters across other platforms.”
Hennessy’s comments come as publishers remain busy trying to demonstrate the value of context and quality of environment as they attempt to protect ad revenues being gobbled up by the likes of Google and Facebook.
Recent analysis of ad campaigns placed within premium online platforms revealed a general uplift in attention and viewability rates compared with non-premium platforms.
Of the brands analysed – which included The Washington Post, Bloomberg Media, The Economist and The New York Times – attention and viewability rates saw lifts of up to 92% in some instances.
Hennessy added that MEC often encourages clients to take a “blended” approach that offers a balance between context and scale – using the bigger players as well as high engagement platforms.
“It’s still important that the context is there to deliver against campaigns – but there’s also a balance,” she said.
