DoubleVerify will rate NBCU CTV programs for brand safety

NBCUniversal has enlisted DoubleVerify to vet its streaming content library for brand safety and suitability, addressing a widespread gap in providing advertisers detail about the content their ads run alongside in ad-supported streaming. The move addresses a gap in which brand safety is widely monitored—albeit not with complete success—across the open web and social media but widely invisible in many free ad-supported video (FAST) and ad-supported streaming (AVOD) buys. Dentsu looked to address the issue last year by bringing keyword buying to CTV, but that requires support from publishers and supply side platforms that isn’t always there. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here Realistically, brand safety issues crop up in all kinds of digital media, regardless of tracking. But with some of the highest CPMs in media, CTV also raises expectations for delivery. “One of the biggest challenges right now in CTV is the lack of transparency when it comes to program-level data,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify. “We provide brand safety analysis on an app level, which is not super helpful to a lot of advertisers. I mean, the difference between YouPorn and Hulu is pretty clear.” But within NBCU’s Peacock, albeit rife with premium studio-produced content, are children’s shows and R-rated movies such as “Oppenheimer,” which, seven Academy Awards or not, is outside many advertisers’ guidelines. If they’re buying programmatically, however, meeting content standards may be impossible without individual program detail. DoubleVerify looks to provide that through its work with NBCU, though content will be classified at the program level, not the scene level, should advertisers want to buy into say, “Oppenheimer,” but not adjacent to a sex scene. “NBCU is really the first CTV platform that’s leaning into this” by providing program-level brand safety information, Zagorski said, though he expects other publishers to ultimately follow in an increasingly competitive market. In many cases, advertisers buy CTV using advanced audiences rather than based on content or time slot, but they may still want to apply their content standards to the programs where ads run. The solution will use DV’s Video OmniTag technology and NBCU’s data clean room to help facilitate that. “With the rise of streaming, it’s imperative that publishers provide brands with the data they need to be sure they’re running their media in environments that are both brand-safe and brand-suitable,” said Dominick Vangeli, senior VP and general manager of advanced advertising and partnership at NBCU, in a statement. While this product partnership is about brand safety and suitability tracking by program, DoubleVerify separately tracks viewability issues such as whether TVs in a home are on or off, the duration that ads ran and whether they ran with the sound on, Zagorski said. That information is collected on a census rather than sample level, he said. Media measurement blog Tracking TV, social and digital updates Click here

DoubleVerify will rate NBCU CTV programs for brand safety

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