Earlier this week, YouTube announced it had become the first UGC platform to receive a content level brand safety accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC).
The accreditation signals “YouTube’s multi-year commitment to… protect our viewers, creators and advertisers from harm,” said Google’s Debbie Weinstein, VP of YouTube & Video Global Solutions, in a blog post. “We do this through investments in staffing, technology and policy development.”
MRC’s accreditation certifies YouTube’s brand safety measures at the content level following an audit of its policies that determine which videos can be on YouTube and which are eligible to monetize. The audit also covered YouTube’s technology that analyzes videos uploaded to the service and the work of human raters that supplement its automated quality control.
Weinstein goes on to say YouTube is “committed to remaining at least 99% effective at ensuring brand safety of advertising placements.”
The MRC accreditation comes at an important time for YouTube, who has notoriously struggled with brand safety issues for years. The site’s ongoing brand safety crisis began to snowball in 2017, once The Guardian pulled its ads due to extremist content. After that, we saw a steady stream of very public albeit temporary advertiser departures (AT&T, Verizon, Havas UK, etc.), though all those buyers ultimately made their way back to the platform.
Since then, YouTube has continued to fail on brand safety. In 2019, Disney, Nestlé and Epic Games all halted their ads after they appeared next to videos of young girls featuring exploitative comments by users. In another incident last year, a study revealed some of the biggest companies in the world — including Samsung and L’Oreal — had inadvertently run ads against climate misinformation videos.
To be fair, YouTube has made a flurry of positive changes to address the issue, adding tools like topic exclusions and site category exclusions, partnering with third-party verification companies like DoubleVerify and removing monetization wholesale from potentially inappropriate or offensive content. The MRC win is meant to be further evidence of the platform’s commitment to building a safe advertising environment — and the changes appear to be winning over key brands.
YouTube’s MRC blog post includes a quote from Marc Pritchard, P&G’s Chief Brand Officer. “This accreditation milestone is testament to YouTube’s sustained commitment and investment to enable brands to advertise in safe environments on their platform,” said Pritchard. “We hope this experience inspires others to do the same, and that progress continues towards a responsible media supply chain.”
With “others,” Pritchard is likely referring to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest. While Facebook and Pinterest are MRC accredited for areas like impression measurement and viewability, none of them are brand safety certified. Meanwhile, Snapchat and Twitter aren’t accredited at all, for anything.
Still, given YouTube’s track record to date, it’s likely brands and agencies will approach the MRC news skeptically.
GSK’s Jerry Daykin tweets that “the accreditation seems to allow up to 1% brand safety fails” which “could still be $10s of millions funding bad stuff.”
Similarly, DPG Media’s Simon Harris says, “Obviously good that Google has improved their brand safety tools for YouTube, same goes for Facebook. But if advertisers pile back onto these platforms they’re still funding hate, they’re just not adjacent to it anymore.”
