Retailers Subject to Significant Online Advertising Risk this Holiday Shopping Season

NEW YORK, Nov. 24, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a report released today from AdSafe Media, the online advertising practices of retailers have the potential to put their brands at significant risk this holiday season, a period that has traditionally seen a significant increase in media spending from retailers.  Key findings from the pre-holiday season report (AdSafe's Third Quarter Review) include statistics regarding the appearance of retailers' advertisements on pages that would be considered inappropriate for advertising, and the frequency in which retailer's advertisements were served outside geographic target markets.

Specific data points from the report include:

• Retailer ads appeared on Web pages that were rated 6 percent more risky for advertising than industry averages
• Adult Content was the most prevalent type of high risk content for retailers' ads
• 4 percent of Retailer ads were served outside of geographic targeting requirements

While most retailers are conscious of these brand safety risks, the holiday shopping season's forecasted increases in advertising spend by retailers have the potential to magnify these brand safety risks.  

"Brand safety concerns are top-of-mind for most retailers leveraging digital to engage with their consumers. Having your brand appear in an inappropriate context not only has financial and regulatory implications, it has the potential to compromise consumers' perception of your brand. This is of the upmost concern to brands in the peak of their purchase cycle, such as over the holidays," commented Julie Roehm, a leading strategic marketing consultant and former SVP of Marketing for Wal-Mart.

In order to mitigate advertisers' concerns during periods of increased ad spending, many brands are employing brand safety platforms to enable "brand safe" advertising.

"Historically advertisers have had to balance their need for increased reach with their desire for brand safety. As advertisers increase their reach they have had to sacrifice control over the type of content they advertise against. We have found that retailers face unique challenges in this balancing act due to the cyclicality of their business; they must increase ad spending dramatically in a very short window of time. We have seen an increase in the number of retailers using our brand safety tools in preparation for this holiday season," commented Kent Wakeford, President of AdSafe, a leading brand safety platform.

For more information regarding this report, please visit www.adsafemedia.com.

About AdSafe Media

AdSafe is the Rating Standard of Online Media. AdSafe rates the brand safety of content on commercially supported Web pages using proprietary algorithmic modeling and human verification. AdSafe's BrandSafe Firewall enables Advertisers to prevent advertising from appearing on Web pages that do not meet their content rating requirements. AdSafe's Network Monitor enables Ad-Networks and Publishers to manage the brand safety of the display inventory, thereby increasing protecting clients and increasing monetization of display inventory. AdSafe is headquartered in New York, NY with operations in San Francisco, CA and London, England. For more information visit www.AdSafeMedia.com.

SOURCE AdSafe Media