The UK and wider EMEA region are underperforming when it comes to brand safety and suitability, with violations on ads served sitting above global benchmarks, but there are significant signs of improvement, according to research from DoubleVerify.
The eighth annual ‘DV Global Insights: 2024 Trends Report’ has revealed that UK brand safety and suitability violations hit 7.6% of ads served in 2023, more than 30% higher than the global benchmark of 5.8%. Meanwhile, EMEA violations represented 9% of ads, which is staggeringly more than 70% higher than North America.
The problem facing advertisers is reflected in 42% of EMEA media buyers seeing an increase in low-quality content and made-for-advertising (MFA) sites as a disruptive threat to the digital ecosystem, while 34% believe that emerging channels have a significant negative impact on media quality.
Nonetheless, EMEA is the least worried region about the brand safety and suitability issues facing them. And that’s probably because things are actually moving in the right direction.
Violations within EMEA fell by 15%, with UK violations alone decreasing by 23% – a good sign in a world currently meandering a key political year. However, 61% of EMEA media buyers are at least somewhat concerned about navigating political news cycles this year, and 37% report that elections have a significant negative impact on media quality.
Interestingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is both viewed as a problem and a solution by media buyers, with more than half believing that generative AI significantly negatively impacts media quality, while 55% believing AI-driven campaign optimisation has the opposite impact. Moreover, a major factor in the decline in brand safety and suitability violations has been the 41% year-on-year increase in the use of AI-led, custom pre-bid brands suitability protections.
“As we approach a potentially challenging news cycle perpetuated by the recent election, which will also see the increasing influence of AI-generated content, it’s crucial for UK advertisers to invest in brand suitability solutions”, said Nick Reid, SVP and Managing Director EMEA at DoubleVerify. “UK and EMEA media buyers should investigate and emulate the example of North America, which has increased adoption of AI-led, pre-bid protections, and brought its market violation rate down to 5.2%.”
*DoubleVerify is a client of Bluestripe Communications, owned by Bluestripe Group, publisher of NDA
