IAS Media Quality Report shows brand risk is falling fastest in UK for online video
UK digital media and advertising quality and brand risk improved the most compared to global levels in the first half of this year, a report by Integral Ad Science has found.
The digital media-quality company’s Media Quality Report for H1 2021 analysed trillions of data events from campaigns globally between 1 January to 30 June.
The report looked at viewability, brand safety and ad fraud among other factors across categories compared to the same period in 2020. Dangers to brands can range from alcohol-related impressions to disinformation, adult content, hate speech, violent content and ad fraud.
It found that, as a whole, video ads had lower risk and greater viewability than display ads.
Another finding was that the UK had the highest decrease of brand risk globally on video campaigns in H1 2021.
The report discovered that video inventory’s brand risk decreased when purchased programmatically.
For mobile web video, brand risk fell from 5.6% to 2% and for desktop video risk fell from 5.3% to 1.4% in the first six months of 2021.
The UK had the lowest levels of brand risk on desktop video, going down from 5.7% to 1.6%, compared to the global average of 3.6%.
Mobile web video brand risk also decreased from 6.3% to 2.2% in the UK, with the global average also at 3.6%.
Risk across display formats remained stable year-on-year, for mobile web display this went up by 0.1 percentage points and for desktop display this went down by 0.1 percentage points.
Nick Morley, managing director for EMEA at IAS, said: “The distinct reduction in brand risk this year suggests that industry stability is resuming, with confidence increasing towards video ad inventory as the economy recovers.
“The improvement around misinformation reflects the industry’s commitment to supporting high-quality media outlets and publishers.
“More generally, we believe the move away from a blunt approach to brand suitability towards a nuanced contextual strategy means advertisers won’t inadvertently miss positive opportunities to interact with engaged audiences.”