How to keep your online ads away from fake news

Fake news is big busi­ness. Despite mar­keters’ moves against mis­in­for­ma­tion, the sheer size and com­plex­i­ty of buy­ing online ads has meant sim­ply block­list­ing, or block­ing, sites car­ry­ing fake news is not enough. Many brands insist the prob­lem is with the plat­forms and they are demand­ing action.

The US-based Stop Hate for Prof­it cam­paign orches­trat­ed a month-long boy­cott of online ads on Face­book in July. Among the 1,200 brands par­tic­i­pat­ing were glob­al names P&G, Dis­ney and Coca-Cola. Indus­try ana­lysts believe Face­book suf­fered a drop in ad rev­enue of around $30 mil­lion from just its top 100 adver­tis­ers as a result.

The social media giant’s response was to launch a cam­paign to help peo­ple spot fake news, how­ev­er many con­tend this doesn’t go far enough. Face­book has also revealed it will block all polit­i­cal and issue-led online ads after US elec­tion day polling clos­es on Novem­ber 3. This fol­lows an ear­li­er announce­ment that it will ban new polit­i­cal ads in the week lead­ing up to the elec­tion. Addi­tion­al­ly, in ear­ly-Octo­ber, along with Twit­ter, it once again flagged as mis­lead­ing a post by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump about mail-in postal vot­ing.

Real world threat of fake news

The impact of fake news on brands is not sim­ply the­o­ret­i­cal. Believ­ers of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries around 5G took to destroy­ing mobile net­work masts, putting emer­gency ser­vice pro­vi­sion at risk. As a result, O2 joined around 70 oth­ers as part of the Con­scious Adver­tis­ing Net­work (CAN), a vol­un­teer-led group sup­port­ed by indus­try names such as O2, WWF, Accen­ture Inter­ac­tive, KIND Snacks, Havas Media and Merkle as well as civ­il soci­ety groups like Tell Mama, Show Racism the Red Card, Stop Fund­ing Hate and even the Unit­ed Nations.

Nina Bib­by, O2’s chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer, says: “We are mark­ing our com­mit­ment to help­ing the indus­try estab­lish clear ethics and prac­tices that pos­i­tive­ly impact cus­tomers’ lives and well­be­ing. The mis­in­for­ma­tion around 5G is just one exam­ple of the dam­age fake news can cause.”

One of the first steps needs to be a change in atti­tude towards how online ads are placed. “The default needs to be changed in the way ads are bought and sold. Brands need to be ask­ing their sup­ply chain what actions they are tak­ing to stop brands end­ing up next to fake news,” says CAN co-chair Har­ri­et Kinga­by.

Cheryl Calver­ley, chief exec­u­tive of Eve Sleep, which joined the Stop Hate for Prof­it Face­book boy­cott, adds: “This is a real­ly dif­fi­cult top­ic for brands. It’s easy as a lit­tle brand to make the right choice, but in a real­ly big busi­ness you don’t know where your mar­ket­ing sup­ply chain is.” Pres­sure should be brought to bear on the sup­ply chain from all sides through indus­try-wide bod­ies includ­ing the Trust­wor­thy Account­abil­i­ty Group, or TAG, and ISBA, she says.

This is a pan­dem­ic of mis­in­for­ma­tion that threat­ens our way of life. We are doing this in an absence of reg­u­la­tion

CAN’s co-founder and co-chair Jake Dub­bins doesn’t mince his words: “This is a pan­dem­ic of mis­in­for­ma­tion that threat­ens our way of life and democ­ra­cy. We are doing this in an absence of reg­u­la­tion. Brands and peo­ple like us are hav­ing to step into this. Why is it left to vol­un­teers?”

Stepping up to protect online advertising

Increas­ing­ly, it’s not just brands and pres­sure groups that are tak­ing a stand. While a social platform’s com­mit­ment may be seen to be left want­i­ng, more expe­ri­enced pub­lish­ers recog­nise fake news is also a threat to their prod­uct.

Reuters is engaged not only in fact-check­ing its own out­put, but also works with third par­ties includ­ing Face­book to flag mis­in­for­ma­tion and demote it via its algo­rithm so few­er peo­ple see it. But why not remove it alto­geth­er?

“There is the need to draw the line some­where so the focus is on harm,” explains Hazel Bak­er, head of user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent news­gath­er­ing at Reuters. “There is a whole series of cat­e­gories where con­tent is flagged because it vio­lates com­mu­ni­ty stan­dards. If it absolute­ly vio­lates stan­dards, then if it’s flagged, it’s tak­en down. It’s been strict around coro­n­avirus because the real-world risk is high.

“Oth­er things don’t car­ry imme­di­ate mate­r­i­al risk, such as reports around [US Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date] Joe Biden’s tax plans. Claims have been dis­trib­uted in cam­paign videos which are incor­rect and miss huge con­text, but there’s an argu­ment for leav­ing it up.”

Bak­er argues there is, in fact, val­ue to the read­er in see­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion debunked and adver­tis­ers shouldn’t be scared of this. “Nuances need to be explored. It’s the place to adver­tise because that’s where the eye­balls are. Block­list­ing is prob­lem­at­ic as these are the news arti­cles dom­i­nat­ing our cov­er­age.”

Build a brave and intelligent ad campaign

While fake news is clear­ly a no-go area for brands, Thom­son Reuters pro­gram­mat­ic sales spe­cial­ist Josef Najm believes mar­keters need to under­stand nuance if they’re to make the most of their online adver­tis­ing expo­sure. The flight from news sites dur­ing coro­n­avirus was dam­ag­ing to all con­cerned, he says.

“I’d like to have a dis­cus­sion around brand suit­abil­i­ty, rather than brand safe­ty,” says Najm. “Tech­ni­cal­ly, news is not brand safe. But you’d have bet­ter per­for­mance and bet­ter engage­ment [with an ad] adja­cent to a news arti­cle that’s infor­ma­tive and empow­ers deci­sions.”

He believes mar­keters need to take some respon­si­bil­i­ty for their online ads. “That pro­gram­mat­ic adver­tis­ing is auto­mat­ic is a mis­con­cep­tion. If you ‘set it and for­get it’, you’re not going to get the best per­for­mance. Adver­tis­ers are putting a lot of trust on kids right out of col­lege to put togeth­er media plans. You have to be the con­duc­tor in an orches­tra,” Najm insists.

Calver­ley at Eve Sleep con­cludes: “Every mar­keter cares deeply about where their brand is fea­tured and the com­pa­ny it keeps. But divi­sive views are dri­ving eye­balls and it’s very dif­fi­cult. We are cus­tomers of media own­ers. The ques­tion is could you repack­age your media? I would love to buy inven­to­ry that has been stamped ‘This is not fund­ed by hate’.”

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