Dentsu has abandoned a brand safety and journalism initiative, in partnership with The 614 Group, according to a new report.
The timeline: On August 8, 2024, GARM shut down following a lawsuit from X and Elon Musk alleging illegal advertising boycott. About a month later, Dentsu launched the “Dentsu Coalition” with The 614 Group, OpenX, and Sightly. The project aimed to encourage brand investment in quality news, particularly during critical periods like elections. The launch announcement said: “This collaboration will study why leading brands invest in news today and aim to deliver a marketer’s point of view on how these investments can increase.”
While GARM focused on social platform content moderation, the Dentsu-614 initiative was more centered on opening up investments for news. Kind of apples and oranges, in a way. However, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan challenged the initiative in a letter to Dentsu. Jordan wrote: “The Dentsu Coalition appears to be pursuing objectives similar to GARM’s. Before dissolving, GARM routinely attempted to delineate which news outlets were credible enough to receive advertising dollars.” He added that “Dentsu’s coordinated actions may be illegal,” suggesting, essentially, it could unfairly target conservative media.
Dentsu has now pulled back, with general counsel Susan Zoch telling Fox News: “Recognizing the confusion that has surfaced surrounding the initiative, Dentsu has elected not to pursue the initiative referred to as the ‘Dentsu Coalition’ and further not to pursue any effort with similar aims.”
Why This Matters:
The situation highlights the challenges in attempting to fill the void of GARM as a standards creator, especially in a politicized environment. This incident also points to a larger issue: while brands recognize the importance of supporting journalism, they are wary of any appearance of partisanship, which can expose them to political scrutiny and potential legal risks.
Experts React:
From Lou Paskalis, Chief Strategy Officer at Ad Fontes, on GARM’s shutdown in August:
Our Take:
While some sites don’t meet basic brand safety standards (the obvious content you would expect), one wonders if we might see a broader shift in how news publishers are treated in 2025, particularly as more platforms move toward supporting “news” in general. This could end up being driven by the desire to support journalism and also to remain seemingly “balanced.” Rather than emphasizing “trusted” or “quality” news publishers, the focus could shift to “news” itself. Brand safety may start to focus less on the publisher’s reputation and more on the specific content—a move toward assessing individual articles or videos against safety criteria, regardless of the publication. Content-specific, not publisher-specific.
