Brand Safety: A Path to Victory in Fighting Content Pirates

As background I39ve been deeply involved in collective efforts to stop adsupported revenue from enriching criminals who profit from the theft of intellectual property over the last several years amp160Among those efforts GroupM teamed up with companies from every part of the advertising industry to form the Trustworthy Accountability Group TAG an organization created to fight criminals protect brandsamp160and shore up the integrity of the digital ad supply chainThrough a pledge organized by TAG and promoted by GroupM many participating brands and agencies pledged to take quotreasonable stepsquot to keep their ads off pirate sites a meaningful first step in demonstrating awareness of this massive multipronged problem in the online ecosystemamp160 Today GroupM is calling on companies to take the next step in that effort by publicly committing to use TAG Certified Against Piracy partners to ensure their ads meet that pledgeNegative impacts for brands appearing on pirate sites can be significantamp160 When ads from major brands appear on websites devoted to the illegal distribution of pirated movies and television shows it creates an appearance that those brands endorse the criminal activity on the siteamp160 Worse those same sites are also Trojan horse vehicles exposing consumers to aamp160download of dangerous malware to their computers leading the consumer to believe that the brands were somehow involved in spreading malicious codeThe original TAG antipiracy pledge is now part of TAG39s quotCertified Against Piracyquot seal program allowing TAG to recognize the brands that abide by an effective set of antipiracy guidelinesamp160 Companies that earn the seal have proven their commitment to combatting adsupported piracy in the digital advertising supply chainAnother significant component of these efforts is CreativeFuture39s Follow the Money campaign a letterwriting initiative directed at major brands and agencies whose advertisements often appear on pirate websitesamp160 Politely informing these companies that their brands were found on pirate sites is usually an eyeopener for the advertiser and this awareness of the problem is the first step ahead of implementing practical precautions to avoid future misplacementsamp160 The Follow the Money campaign has achieved dramatic success reducing the advertisingdriven earnings of pirate sites Dozens of major brands contacted have reduced or eliminated their placement on pirate sitesA recent study conducted for TAG by Ernst ampamp Young validated our progress in reducing advertising support for internet piracyamp160 According to the study industry efforts have reduced revenues directed to pirate sites by 48 to 61 percentamp160 This translates to a dramatic decrease of 102 amp8211 177 million per yearThis simply would not have been possible without rigorous sustained collaboration between digital ad buyers ad sellersamp160and the intermediary companies that make such transactions possibleBut the war is far from overInfringement of copyrighted content still costs the marketing advertisingamp160and media industries billions of dollars in the United States alone and digital pirate sites remain one of its primary outletsamp160 It39s imperative we continue fortifying our efforts to protect brand safety in the digital advertising space and safeguard the intellectual property of creatives whose work continues to be stolen through adsupported piracy channelsTwo years ago Iamp160called on advertisers and agenciesamp160to take the TAG antipiracy pledgeamp160 Today I urge every brand advertiser to take that effort to the next level by publicly committing to use one or more TAG Certified Against Piracy companies to ensure that every ad placement in their supply chain meets TAG39s rigorous standardsBy raising the bar for ourselves and our partners we can cut off the remaining flow of money to the criminals who steal our intellectual property and take a vital step in protecting our brandsamp160 Now that we have these criminals on the ropes let39s knock them out for goodClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Brand Safety: A Path to Victory in Fighting Content Pirates

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John Montgomery

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

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Brand Safety: A Path to Victory in Fighting Content Pirates

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John Montgomery

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

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