OWM survey: advertisers pause YouTube campaigns after legal safety incidents
After paedophile content appeared in numerous comments on YouTube videos in February, some advertisers publicly committed to pausing their campaigns. However, it remained unclear how high the proportion was. The German organization Werbungtreibende im Markenverband (OWM) asked its members how many had actually stopped their activities.
The results of this non-representative survey (participation rate: 30 percent of OWM members) are now available: 90 percent of survey participants run campaigns on YouTube, of which a third (35 percent) have paused their campaigns.
OWM Managing Director Joachim Schütz comments: "This figure clearly shows the high relevance of brand-safe environments and especially legal safety for advertisers. In particular, the live documentation of the tragic events in Christchurch and their millionfold dissemination have once again clearly demonstrated what a worst-case scenario of social network abuse can look like and the great difficulties platforms have in dealing with it."
Even if Google is making visible efforts to limit the damage, the OWM is calling more than ever for compliance with brand safety in the sense of legal safety and brand suitability on all social platforms following the recent events.
"Advertising environments with user-generated content must be free of fake news and extremist, discriminatory and illegal content. Offers that do not comply with legal safety must be excluded from marketing," emphasizes Christine Diener, Head of Digital at OWM.
