Brand Safety
Measures taken to ensure ads do not appear alongside harmful, offensive, or inappropriate content that could damage brand reputation.
What Brand Safety means
Brand safety encompasses strategies and tools that protect advertisers from having their ads displayed alongside content that is violent, hateful, sexually explicit, or otherwise inappropriate. This is particularly relevant for audience network placements and in-stream video ads. Industry standards are set by organizations like the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and verified by companies like IAS and DoubleVerify. Platforms offer brand safety controls including category exclusions, keyword block lists, inventory filters, and content adjacency reporting. The rise of user-generated content platforms like TikTok and YouTube has made brand safety increasingly complex. Compliance officers should establish brand safety policies that align with both company values and platform capabilities.
Related terms
Audience Network
A platform's extended ad delivery network that places ads on third-party apps and websites beyond the core platform.
Ad Placement
The specific location or format where an ad appears within a platform's ecosystem (e.g., Feed, Stories, Reels, Search).
Viewability
A metric measuring whether an ad was actually visible to a user, based on industry standards for pixels-in-view and display duration.
Content Moderation
The process by which platforms review and enforce rules on user-generated and advertising content.