It isn’t uncommon these days to see a company’s reputation suffer as a result of being out of touch with its stakeholders and the cultural moment in general. This week we saw the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), whose lack of diversity—among other criticisms—inspired scores of celebrities and brands to distance themselves from organization—and NBC went as far as canceling its next award ceremony, the Golden Globes. Following are lessons learned from the debacle and insights on how brands can course-correct amid crises, according to a piece in PRNEWS.

Branding expert Katie Paine writes that once an organization is perceived as being in trouble, the media will reproduce that message until action is taken to dramatically correct it. Secondly, the HFPA should have designated a spokesperson who was credible and knowledgeable to answer questions from the media—because reporters will find answers where they can, regardless.

Communicating key messages rather than hiding behind legalese or making empty promises could have helped the organization, Paine writes. She also says to beware of offering platitudes in place of committing to—and following through with—making real change.

For more insights into the HFPA debacle and how the organization could have handled the crisis differently, read on in PRNEWS.

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It’s a strategy that we witnessed during the pandemic as well. However, this pattern of reactionary behavior, while meant to protect brands’ images and reputations, may be harming independent news sites producing content worthy of monetization, Schiff argues. Citing an IAB report that found that consumers are 45 percent more likely to visit a brand’s website if it advertises on their preferred news outlets, she notes that advertising in the news can in fact increase consumer trust.

Marketers might consider approaching brand safety in a more nuanced fashion, according to the piece, and embrace the concept of brand suitability, in which context is taken into account and appropriate content to advertise against is actively sought out. For more on the topic, read on in AdExchanger.

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In July, the Daily Beast published a list of all the brands MAGA supporters should boycott, including Walmart. Why? Because a third-party seller on the Walmart sells baby clothes with the slogan, “Impeach 45.” Meanwhile, GrabYourWallet.org has published a list of 45 companies to boycott for their support for Trump, along with a script and the contact details of company representatives to make it easier for consumers to voice their objections.

It’s fair to say that never have Americans expressed their politics through their pocketbooks as they do in recent times. It’s also fair to say that brands will find it increasingly difficult to stay clear of the fracas by advertising in non-biased channels.

But steering clear of highly-biased sites will be no easy feat. To begin, sites one would assume have nothing to do with politics may very well be extremely political, thanks to members who bring their views to the forum. Take Ravelry, a site that caters to people who like to knit and crochet. This summer its management team issued a statement saying it will no longer allow political comments.

Second, even if you maintain a blacklist of highly-biased sites to avoid, there’s no guarantee your ads won’t appear on them, especially if you rely on ad networks or purchase inventory via open ad exchanges. The industry hasn’t solved the transparency problem.

Third, social media channels, which are key for app developers’ UA campaigns, are fundamentally unsafe environments for brands. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook wouldn’t even try to ban political ads that are patently false, stating in a Congressional hearing that if a candidate is lying, voters will want to know about those lies. Twitter said it would ban all political ads, but that’s no guarantee of brand safety if your ad appears next to a Tweet that calls for building the wall or jailing all billionaires. To my mind, it’s an open question as to whether app developers should advertise in social media next year.

What Can Brands Do?

Since no brand can afford to put all advertising on hold from now until the end of 2020, my recommendation is to accept this reality, and beef up your defenses. For instance:

• Update and scrub your whitelists and blacklists. Spend some time and effort identifying publications and channels whose audience aligns with yours and meets your brand safety requirements. Look beyond editorial content and examine readers’ comments. Do they bring up politics when it’s not germane to the article itself? Do they gang up on readers who have different views? If so, consider scratching it off your list.
• Update–and test–your keyword exclusion list. If you want to avoid the election altogether, you’ll need to review your keyword exclusion list regularly. Are they performing as anticipated? You may also want to consider excluding inherently political keywords like “impeachment,” or “caucus” or “superdelegate.”
• Demand radical transparency. If an ad network or partner can’t tell you exactly where your ads will be placed, scratch it off your media list. Granted this partner may have delivered great results for you in the past–or was just a pretty good way to spend down your media budget–but the stakes will be higher in 2020. The country is split 50/50, and if your ad appears on any side of the political divide, you can lose customers and prospects. Worse, overnight you may find your brand the target of a Twitter meme demanding a nationwide boycott.
• Establish internal content moderators. You can have signed contracts promising your media partners will honor your blacklists and whitelists, but you may also want to verify for it yourself. Consider hiring (or redeploying existing employees) content moderators to look for instances where your brand’s safety is jeopardized.
• Prepare now for potential problems. Despite your best efforts, you may be unfortunate enough to be the center of a political fray. Don’t wait until such an event occurs. If your goal is to steer clear of politics, and respect all opinions, state as much on your website. Explain the steps you take to ensure your ad dollars don’t go to hate sites or fund hateful content. It just may help some of the people who come to your site to understand that accidents happen.
• Stand your ground. Okay, it’s a politically charged phrase, but the truth is, some brands want to take a stand on politics and issues, even if that means losing some of their customers. That’s your right to do so. Just don’t cry foul if you end up with a lot of critical media attention. Take the time up front to understand the consequences of weighing before you weigh in.
• Amp up affinity partnerships. Second-party data exchanges–instances when two simpatico brands share customer lists in order to find net new audiences–may be an option worth exploring. This will allow you to advertise in extremely brand-safe environments.
• Look for alternatives to advertising. Finally, look for non-traditional advertising opportunities, like pre-loads for your app. In such cases, your app is pre-installed on phones, waiting for the user to discover it. It’s 100% transparent–you know where your is app is going and there’s no fraud to boot.

Anyone who reads the news knows as a country we are entering new territory. The 2020 election will be unlike any other in the nation’s history. Advertising won’t be exempt from turmoil, but with enough forethought and planning, your brand can weather the ride.

Matt Tubergen is Executive Vice President of Digital Turbine Media.

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For instance, the popularity of shopping on smartphones affecting the purchasing funnel from ad to cart, and the rise of digital assistants that have made voice search SEO a new part of digital strategies. Along similar lines, smartphones are also giving rise to voice search. The point is that digital marketing trends are constantly coming and going.

To illustrate, the following are some of the top up-and-coming 2019 digital marketing trends, and how these trends will affect marketer’s strategies through the coming year.

1. Actual Intelligence with AI
Salesforce recently reported that artificial intelligence use among marketers will grow more than 50 percent in the next two years for the purpose of better ad targeting.

In 2019, we’ll also start to see AI used to optimize ad creative images. AI will eventually be used to not only understand contextual data, but also images. Further, AI for “intent advertising” will emerge, and platforms will be able to recognize what the shopper is trying to achieve and cater the creative messaging and imagery to the user’s experience.

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2. Influencer Marketing Goes Mainstream
This year, brands will allocate more budget than ever to influencer marketing because campaign results have been exceedingly effective for advertisers this past year. Influencer marketing is fast-becoming a more time- and cost-effective way to reach new potential customers.

Additionally, influencer marketing has reached a new niche with gamers: E-sports got a major uplift in 2018 and the live-streaming video platform Twitch became a greater focus of attention in the influencer marketing sphere. Marketers will finally tap into the full potential of Twitch’s reach in 2019.

3. Video Ads Will Grow
As consumers spend more time on their smartphones watching videos, advertisers are expected to spend $20 billion on mobile video in 2019 (up from $2 billion in 2015), and video is expected to account for 85 percent of total Internet traffic by 2019 (both live video and video ads).

This past year, 65 percent of ad impressions on Instagram were the result of video content, and this is expected to grow even further. With this type of growth and consumption of video ads by consumers, video ads should be part of every marketer’s strategy in 2019. Marketers can accelerate their video ad content by running video ads on YouTube and Instagram, as well as by creating video content in-house or working with third-party creative agencies.

4. Voice Activated Search Matures
By 2020, it’s expected that 50 percent of all searches will be voice searches, and by 2022, voice commerce sales will reach $40 billion. Next year, consumers will be able to do more in search with their voice, and mobile marketers should be prepared for voice activated search advertising. User interface platforms will become the new battleground for marketers (Alexa v Google Home, Siri, Bigsby).

As search engines grow more and more sensitive to user intent, it becomes increasingly vital that advertisers tag every image, video and piece of content appropriately with meta descriptions and alt-text. Search engines use these bits of information to promptly categorize and serve up content to users. Without them, marketers will lose traffic—more so in 2019.

5. Messenger Ads and In-App Ads are on the Rise
According to Statista, 2.01 billion mobile phone users accessed over-the-top messaging apps to communicate in 2018, a number that is projected to grow to 2.48 billion users by 2021.

The top APAC chat apps are already ahead of western developers in using messenger ads to reach audiences. In South Korea, a country of 50 million, KakaoTalk counts 32 million local users who spend an average of 850 minutes on KakaoTalk per month. In August 2018, Whatsapp Messenger was the most downloaded app for Android users globally and is being used by 450 million people daily on both iOS and Android. Whatsapp is followed by Facebook Messenger; which now engages 1.3 billion people globally and is the leading app in the U.S. with 126.3 million users.

Additionally, a new report by AppAnnie predicts that in 2019 the number of apps using in-app advertising will grow by 60 percent as advertisers increase conversion rates with these captive users.

This year will be the year for advertisers to start experimenting in using messenger apps to target and engage with this massive audience as well as increase in-app advertising spending.

6. Finding New Ways to Fight Ad Fraud and Ensure Brand Safety
RetailDive reports that fraud rates have almost doubled since 2017, and Juniper Research estimates that ad fraud will cost advertisers $19 billion in 2018. Next year will further challenge brands and platforms to stay on top of emerging fraud trends from click flooding and click injection to SDK spoofing.

Technologies that were exploratory in 2018 will take centerstage in 2019, including blockchain, which is helping to create a new model that uses a cryptography-encrypted pipeline to ensure that target audiences actually get the ads that are delivered. Blockchain is expected to address transparency, reduce fraudulent attacks and address flaws in the OpenRTB system.

Development of more advanced AI- and machine learning-based ad fraud detection systems is expected in 2019 as well.

Brand safety is becoming a key concern, and there is a rising need for advertisers to get better information regarding the quality of the inventory. At the same time, there is an increase in recognizing this safety issue as the publisher’s responsibility. More focus on technology solutions to identify fraudulent patterns will be key in 2019.

7. Macro Trends: APAC App Ecosystem Expands into Europe and U.S.
In the global mobile ecosystem, Chinese and other APAC-based apps from chat to mCommerce began to soar through the ranks of the U.S. and EU app stores in 2018. Discounts, seamless payments and customer service were driving factors in APAC apps gaining traction in global markets.

Traction will continue to grow, and with it, new concepts being introduced by APAC to western markets like social commerce are expected to rise with social media and campaigns in 2019.

8. Parallel Bidding is the Next Big Thing for In-App Advertising
The days of monetizing apps through advertising in a waterfall system is over. This year, apps will instead sell their ad inventory through header bidding, or parallel bidding. Unlike the waterfall where requests are sent consecutively to ad demand sources, one by one, parallel bidding sends the ad requests to the ad demand sources simultaneously, and an OpenRTB auction then takes place on the ad mediator’s server side. This enables ad networks to not only choose to fill or not fill a certain price floor, but also to report the estimated value of the impression.

This new model creates a fair and competitive environment where ad networks can be more aggressive in winning an impression, but without overbidding, hence it will be the method of choice for in-app advertisers in 2019.
Sven Lubek is managing director at WeQ. He can be reached at sven.lubek@weq.com.  

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