Spotify is working with Integral Ad Science to establish brand safety standards for podcast advertisers as the space becomes more cluttered and demand grows. The goal is to create a third-party brand safety and suitability reporting tool to bring more transparency and confidence to podcast advertising. 

“We know that podcasts work, and now what we need are brands and agencies to feel fully comfortable with their investment and their continued increased investment,” said Julie Clark, head of advertising revenue innovation at Spotify.  

UM Worldwide will be the first media agency to test the offering and will be part of the learning and development process. “The challenge with podcasting, like a lot of the media sector, there’s been a lot of growth and brand safety and stability controls have been absent,” said Joshua Lowcock, global chief media officer at UM Worldwide. 

Podcast listenership and awareness have boomed in recent years, with about 62% of Americans having listened to an audio podcast as of 2021, according to Statista. This number is expected to increase by 20 million listeners each year. Podcast ad revenue has skyrocketed in the U.S., surpassing $1 billion in 2021, and is forecasted to almost triple by 2024, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an industry trade body. 

As the media landscape evolves to focus more on audio, better safety standards are required to prevent ads from being adjacent to inappropriate content and optimize the performance of ads. IAS, as a third party, will use the benchmark standards set in place by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, typically used for visual content, and apply them to audio.

“In some sense, the solutions for audio will mimic video and display as they will align to GARM standards and definition of content categories. But as with all formats, there will be nuances to decipher,” Yannis Dosios, chief commercial officer, IAS, said in a statement. “Threading this needle is where the sophistication of our technology provides maximum value for advertisers looking to avoid brand unsafe environments.” 

At the beginning of this year, Spotify came under fire for continuing to house "The Joe Rogan Experience" amid calls to cancel the podcast for spreading misinformation on COVID vaccines. 

In the past year, Spotify has integrated first-party products, which it says allows brands to eliminate different sensitive topics and target the specific context in which they want their ads to run. Spotify also announced in February its own ad network in a push to monetize the audio-only market. 

The Spotify team made no comment about when this tool will be available to more brands and agencies, but it hopes to set forth the first thorough standards within audio.

“This is a rigorous analysis to help the industry understand what’s needed to deliver brand safety,” Clark said. “Ultimately, the end product of this journey is going to take time.”