Election cycles always bring attention to highly debated social issues. And today, it feels like American politics are in a never-ending election cycle.
While voters won’t select the president until November of next year, campaign season is already in full swing. The president is officially running for reelection and the Republican candidates have entered the fray.
As a result, brands already need to start preparing themselves for a contentious election season, crafting strategies for how they’ll deal with hot-button issues. They’ll also need to be thoughtful and strategic about where their ads will appear. After all, it’s important not to get caught alongside problematic content.
1. The hunt for suitable content
There is an ongoing war in Europe. US immigration policy is shifting. Abortion rights and gun control remain in the news.
Election coverage related to these divisive topics will continue to draw eyeballs, so brands will need to take a nuanced approach to their adjacency strategies.
This means cutting out binary block lists or brand safety practices that simply avoid news content. Instead, advertisers will need to use the tools at their disposal to better grade the meaning of the content on the page, and then build out suitability strategies that match their core values.
Not all breaking news content is negative. Brands may find value in aligning their messages with certain issues and stories.
The best place to start this journey is to review the WFA’s Brand Suitability Framework and discuss the level of risk that an advertiser is willing to take with its buys. Nuance is the key to the future, not block lists.
2. Supporting quality journalism
Building an updated suitability strategy has the benefit of opening up more inventory, as well as driving revenue directly to serious news organizations that dedicate resources to hard-hitting journalism.
The online publishing business is already under siege from both macro economic trends and micro competitive challenges. The rise of sites peddling misinformation, made-for-advertising sites and generative AI only exacerbate this challenge.
Advertisers are wasting $20 billion annually on low quality, undesirable inventory.
But investing in quality journalism can protect their budgets. For one, brands know their ads are appearing alongside reputable content. This responsible media investment also carries with it a halo effect. A brand that appears alongside high-quality journalism earns respect, while brands that appear on made-for-advertising sites get dinged for the association.
Supporting the news is important, but also challenging. Brands can’t be expected to only make direct buys, because they need reach, and that’s more easily attained through programmatic auctions. But any programmatic buys need to use the most modern suitability filtering technologies to align the brand’s values with media placements.
3. The need to build trust
Audiences will flock to election content about abortion, LGBTQIA rights or immigration. So don’t let legacy attitudes toward content adjacency scare you away from placing ads alongside these stories.
Instead, brands must understand this content within its context and take a thoughtful approach to the creative they use.
The technology and frameworks to do so are available: organizations like Brands4News.org are already rolling out open-source creative templates to help make decisions. But it is on brands to educate themselves, make a plan and foster alignment from the top down.
This is not to say that brands need to take a stance when it comes to politics. But political issues matter to consumers – that’s why brands need to consider how their messages will be received when they appear alongside political content.
4. Rampant misinformation
Brands can’t forget about misinformation, which has been a widespread issue since 2016 at least. Misinformation is running rampant on the web, sometimes perpetuated by reputable news organizations that are simply airing politicians’ comments.
The rise of misinformation is linked to websites desperate for traffic and the associated revenue, coupled with advertisers pursuing scale without proper checks and balances.
Combine an uncertain economy with unscrupulous publishers desperate to drive as much revenue as possible, and we’re likely to see a misinformation spike that makes 2016 look tame.
We’re also at an inflection point with generative AI. We’ll undoubtedly see the first cases of bad actors using these tools to spread misinformation during this election cycle.
The ad industry doesn’t have until 2024 to prepare. Now is the time to open up the strategic conversations on how best to plan for media buys during this election cycle.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
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