Twitter promises brand safety to win back ad dollars in Cannes

Newly installed Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino may not be attending the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, but Twitter’s ad sales team is there and they are speaking the language of marketing that Twitter owner Elon Musk never quite embraced: Brand safety. Chris Riedy, Twitter’s head of ad sales, attended the festival to assuage advertisers’ concerns about brand safety, which has been a constant problem on Twitter. Now, Twitter is talking about bringing in more guardians to prove that brands are not running near any objectionable material, even if more harmful content is on the social media platform. Cannes Lions coverage Follow our live blog here Sign up here for email updates See all of the Grand Prix winners here Twitter's Cannes presence was reduced this year compared to its previous showings. Yaccarino, who just started in the role earlier this month, is not in attendance, and the company gave up a prime location on the beach, where it used to host events. Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are all more visible this year. More news: What ad leaders will discuss in Cannes Twitter is still making the most of its time in Cannes. The social platform announced today that it is in talks with Zefr, the independent ad viewability and verification firm, to help with ad controls for brands that want them. Brands want assurance that their ads won't appear above or below tweets of potentially controversial or harmful content. Firms like Zefr can’t tell Twitter how to moderate the platform or what stays and goes, but could potentially show brands that ads did (or did not) appear next to offensive material. Twitter has implemented some controls already with Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify. The third-party firms report to brands how often they were adjacent to content that falls outside their brand suitability guidelines. Twitter has worked with those two firms since 2020, before Musk bought the company, but they renewed a deal earlier this year. The firms were able to analyze ads in the Twitter timeline for the appropriateness of the setting. Riedy posted a thread about Twitter’s brand safety efforts on Tuesday, which included the statement that because of its work and those partnerships, “more than 75% of 2022’s Top 100 advertisers have returned to paid media on Twitter.” This week at #CannesLions2023, we're also kicking off meetings to review more Brand Safety & Suitability providers. We want to enhance our existing suite of controls, even though we continue to make huge strides In Brand Safety. So, where are we today? https://t.co/ptmEk3rO3V— Chris Riedy (@chrisriedy) June 20, 2023 Twitter is exploring other tools, though, the company said in today's announcement at Cannes. “Twitter will officially kick off an RFP process to actively review additional brand safety and suitability controls,” Twitter said, pointing to talks with Zefr and Unitary as potential partners. Zefr has worked with Meta on its brand safety tools, which control where ads run in feeds. Meta announced today it is expanding this functionality to Reels videos. “Zefr has been investing in technology to help brands scale their GARM brand safety and suitability standards on the world's largest global social platforms,” said Rich Raddon, co-founder and co-CEO of Zefr. “We're excited to work with Twitter to give advertisers more control in their content adjacencies on the platform.” Twitter did not name GARM, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, in its announcement. But the group is highly influential as a setter of standards for content moderation on social media. Yaccarino was hired by Musk to take over as CEO and to give advertisers assurances about the platform. When Musk bought Twitter, many ad agencies advised clients to stay away from the service until it stabilized. Among the issues agencies were concerned about was Musk's decision to allow people to pay for blue checkmarks, which opened the door to fake brand accounts. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that impersonations were still happening and affected one of Twitter’s biggest advertisers, Disney. An account pretending to be affiliated with Disney Junior in the U.K. was bestowed the highest verification badge, a gold check, and proceeded to tweet racial slurs, according to The Times, but Disney got assurances Twitter would rectify the situation. There's also been concerns around Musk's moderation policies, and feelings about making Twitter a platform for all kinds of speech, even when offensive or harmful tweets target different communities of users. Musk has courted provocateurs, including Tucker Carlson, who was welcomed to stream his program on Twitter after being ousted from Fox News. During Cannes, Twitter claimed that 99.99% of posts do not contain “hate speech.” That is the type of statistic third-party verification firms could check if given the access. There are signs that advertisers are coming back to Twitter, but it’s unclear if they will spend the $1 billion-plus a quarter they spent before Musk took over. In December, Twitter’s ad revenue declined 71% year over year. In February, WPP CEO Mark Read said brands should start plotting a path back to Twitter. In April, Musk attended Possible in Miami, an ad confab with Yaccarino, before she was announced as Twitter's new CEO. Last week, Musk was in Paris for VivaTech, Publicis’ ad event. Twitter and marketing Tracking updates during Elon Musk's ownership Get the latest news here At the start of the week, Yaccarino tweeted about her Cannes absence: “You can take the girl out of Cannes but you can't take Cannes out of the girl!” along with a picture of a beverage served al fresco. You can take the girl out of Cannes but you can't take Cannes out of the girl! #CannesLions2023 ⁦@KC_Sull⁩ ⁦@leethompsonPR⁩ ⁦@benarroch_joe⁩ ⁦@TaniaBryer⁩ ⁦@iamdiegobv⁩ ⁦@maxeraven⁩ pic.twitter.com/WchyBkE4GL— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) June 18, 2023

Twitter promises brand safety to win back ad dollars in Cannes

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