Lowdown: These Brands Slipped Through YouTube's Safety Check
Posted in: Uncategorized
The Lowdown is Ad Age’s weekly look at news nuggets from across the world of marketing, including trends, campaign tidbits, executive comings and goings and more.
YouTube’s brand-safety crisis has scared off many advertisers, but some seem relatively unconcerned. Hello’s new “An Inconvenient Tooth” video from 72andSunny played Monday just after a YouTube post of Steve Stephens’ Facebook Live rant about plans to kill people in Cleveland. (Stephens also posted a video of a live murder on Easter, and was found dead Tuesday, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot, in Pennsylvania.) A spokeswoman for Hello said the brand knew going in such placements were possible, but added: “Google has been a great partner in helping address it.” Then there’s a Cincinnati-based household name, not Procter & Gamble Co., but Roto-Rooter, whose ad from Curiosity Advertising showing a home drain-cleaning remedy has appeared in recent weeks with several questionable videos cited by brand-safety watchdog Eric Feinberg of Gipec (including the aforementioned Stephens video). A Roto-Rooter spokesman didn’t respond to email or phone requests for comment, but its ads kept running on YouTube after Ad Age started inquiring. Overall, Feinberg has fewer examples of questionable placements to share lately, which suggests either Google’s safeguards are working or the advertiser exodus creates fewer opportunities.
We are already more than four months into the new year, but it’s never too late to get a report card on 2016 brand performance. The latest one comes in the beverage industry where new data shows Coca-Cola outperforming PepsiCo last year. Soda’s woes continued last year with both companies losing carbonated soft drink volume, according to a new report from industry tracker Beverage-Digest. But Coca-Cola showed modest improvement with soda volume across its brands falling by 0.7%, compared with 0.8% in 2015. PepsiCo’s decline was 3.1%, matching 2015’s loss, according to Beverage-Digest. Brand Coke actually eked out a 0.1 point share gain and now has 17.8% share of the soda category. Brand Pepsi lost 0.2 share points and now has 8.4% share.
Post a Comment