AT&T and Johnson & Johnson are the latest big advertisers to halt YouTube ad buys, but the problem of ads and offensive content extends way beyond Google and Facebook, according to a session on terror funding led by The Guardian at Advertising Week Europe.
In the context of yesterday’s terror attack at the Houses of Parliament in London, Hamish Nicklin, chief revenue officer at Guardian News and Media, suggested that the debate, originally titled, ‘If advertising is funding terror, what should we do differently?” should instead ask how advertising and the internet can create a safe, premium environment for marketers.
Blaming the big players for everything is clearly not the answer. Mr. Nicklin suggested that Google and Facebook are just “the tip of the iceberg,” while Anthony Katsur, president of Sonobi, a direct audience platform that works with media companies and not through exchanges, said the issue is about the whole ad tech industry, which, he claimed, is supported by “layers of obfuscation between the brand and the consumer … Suppliers supplying suppliers, supplying suppliers.”
Image courtesy of Ad Age.