Media measurement company DoubleVerify has launched Brand Suitability Tiers for both advertisers and publishers. The launch comes after an initial reveal in November, with DoubleVerify saying that Brand Suitability Tiers “represents the next evolution of the company’s brand safety and suitability solution.”
For advertisers, Brand Suitability Tiers will deliver 13 categories of content tiered by three levels of risk: High, Medium and Low. DoubleVerify’s contextual tools determine content risk using two criteria — content “type” (video, user generated, etc.) and “topic” (natural disasters, etc.). This two-pronged approach to classification is supposed to allow brands to exercise more nuanced blocking strategies without throttling campaign reach. For example, marketers can run ads next to trusted news stories about a sensitive topic, while avoiding that same topic in the UGC environment, where quality is more of a shot in the dark. In total, DoubleVerify clients will be able to take advantage of 89 unique brand safety and suitability settings, which the company claims is “the most comprehensive and flexible coverage available in the market.”
In a statement, DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski said, “At a time when brand alignment with appropriate content has never been more important, our launch of Brand Suitability Tiers delivers a more nuanced and brand-specific way to assess content and context.” He added: “Optimizing for brand suitability is just one part of our broader drive to ensure that all digital transactions are transparent and secure. Through Brand Suitability Tiers, advertisers are able to carefully balance brand reputation protection and campaign scale, while publishers are empowered to better meet advertiser expectations and maximize yield for the quality content they produce.”
As seen with Zagorski’s statement, with this announcement, DoubleVerify has made a point to highlight the value of the technology for the other side of the ad fence — publishers, who have been critical of brand safety verification in the past. The topic of brand safety and publisher monetization popped up in the news again last week as brands navigate a sensitive “insurrection” news cycle.
According to DoubleVerify, on the supply side, Brand Suitability Tiers benefits publishers, giving them access to the data they need to analyze inventory and optimize performance in accordance with suitability during a sale and post. It “provides a common language,” so that demand and supply can agree on transactions based on suitability requirements. The transparency is supposed to improve optimization and inventory allocation for media companies, ultimately maximizing monetization. DoubleVerify says it currently works with more than 110 top publishers, including heavyweights Hearst, Meredith, and others.
“It’s essential to foster collaboration between advertisers and publishers,” said Matt McLaughlin, COO of DoubleVerify. “With Brand Suitability Tiers, publishers have full transparency into how their supply is classified by category and risk tier — helping them to better align their inventory with advertisers’ unique requirements and preferences.”
DV says it’s the first verification company to align product functionality with standards by the 4A’s Advertising Protection Bureau (APB) and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). In recent years, APB and WFA have released guidelines to boost brand safety and suitability practices, creating a more consistent rubric across advertisers and publishers. That rubric is now being mechanized through DoubleVerify’s platform, which should accelerate its adoption given the company’s customer portfolio.
