With the rise of online advertising and social media, brands can reach consumers in unimaginable ways. However, with great opportunity comes great responsibility, especially when we are talking about brand suitability.

In this digital age where the internet is filled with tons of information, ensuring your brand is seen in a safe and appropriate context is paramount. Keep reading to understand the basics of brand safety and suitability and explore why brand suitability begins with brand safety and why it should be a top priority for every business.

What is Brand Safety?

Brand Safety refers to the practice of safeguarding a brand’s image by preventing it from appearing alongside content that could be damaging or inappropriate. This includes avoiding associations with topics such as hate speech, terrorism, illegal activities, piracy, obscenity, and content related to death or injury. For instance, a brand wouldn’t want its ads to be displayed next to breaking news about a conflict or crisis. Traditionally, brand safety has employed methods like keyword banning and URL blocklisting to avoid unwanted connections between the brand and harmful content.

What is Brand Suitability?

Brand Suitability, on the other hand, takes brand safety a step further. It goes beyond simply avoiding harmful content and focuses on understanding the deeper meaning and context of the content surrounding the brand’s advertisements.

For example, a publisher in the banking industry whose ad inventory is ideal for banks. If reports of financial wrongdoing emerge in the news, banks may want to avoid placing ads within those specific articles. However, completely blacklisting the entire website may harm the advertiser’s efforts. This is where brand suitability comes into play, allowing advertisers to filter out specific articles or content that may be considered “risky” while still benefiting from advertising on the rest of the site.

In short, brand safety is about avoiding content that is obviously harmful, while brand suitability involves a more nuanced approach, taking into account the context and meaning of content to ensure a brand’s advertising aligns with its values and objectives. Both practices are essential for maintaining a positive brand image in the ever-evolving digital advertising landscape.

How Brand Suitability Begins With Brand Safety?

Historically, brand safety has centred on the marketer’s need to prevent ads from appearing next to content deemed inappropriate for the target audience. These tactics now seem outdated and inflexible, lacking the level of control needed to build and maintain successful online businesses.

Currently, the major challenge for brand safety is the consideration of context and audience, both of which are essential for determining brand suitability which require more nuance.

Brand suitability is critical for the success of any advertising campaign since it focuses on the context of advertising and its influence on the brand. Furthermore, brand appropriateness may aid in determining which regions appeal to the intended demographic.

As a result, it might be viewed as the next evolutionary step in brand safety. While brand safety is mainly concerned with preventing or deleting the most harmful and destructive information, brand appropriateness is the act of minimising the possibility of a brand appearing in an improper setting so that companies’ reputations may be maintained. However, by tweaking the message, some firms are changing and employing historically dangerous pages for advertising.

Brand Suitability and Safety in a World of Constant Change

As consumers become more sophisticated, marketers and brands must adapt and adopt brand safety and suitability best practices.

In line with the media targeting strategy, brand safety should be flexible and evolve over time to assess emerging events and news cycles independently and determine which content is acceptable or inappropriate for a brand so that ads appear only on websites and apps that will benefit.

As a result, brand safety technologies that enable you to regulate and include or omit ad placements are critical for keeping a positive and suitable brand image.

Unfortunately, certain brand safety products are designed to be one-size-fits-all. It is tough to identify whether the ad is acceptable since not enough attention is paid to a brand’s distinctiveness or the context of words or visuals that appear in an ad.

Conclusion

By prioritizing brand safety and suitability, brands can protect their reputation, reach the right audience, and maximize the impact of their advertising efforts. In today’s competitive digital landscape, ensuring brand suitability is not just a choice; it’s a necessity for long-term success.

In the rapidly changing landscape, a seismic shift is underway. We are living in times when automation has taken center stage in all sectors, especially advertising.

Gone are the days of laborious manual toil for advertisers and publishers alike. Enter programmatic advertising, the game-changer that harnesses data and technology to plan the perfect sync of ads, reaching their intended audience at the precise moment.

The prediction of global programmatic ad spending is to reach 725 billion by 2026. The United States remains the leading programmatic advertising market worldwide. However, advertisers often encounter, two major challenges with programmatic ads:

1. Lack of transparency
2. Ineffective targeting

The programmatic advertising environment is intricate and opaque, making it challenging for advertisers to comprehend how the advertisements are deployed. As a result, advertisers waste money on ads and overpay. Programmatic advertising falls short of engaging the target audience since it heavily relies on data.

Also Read: What is Programmatic Advertising?

Navigating Path for Advertisers to Overcome Obstacles

Along with these challenges, there is another elephant in the room, the demise of third-party cookies.

With the third-party cookies phase-out, tracking user data will be difficult as they will not have a unique identifier that can be used to track users across multiple websites.
In this evolving landscape, advertisers find themselves at a crossroads.
1. They are in desperate need of a solution that offers them a way to overcome the programmatic ad challenges
2. A solution that targets ads without interfering with the user’s privacy.

As a solution, contextual advertising is a ray of hope.

Contextual Advertising as a Solution: HOW?

In the dynamic realm of advertising, contextual advertising isn’t a newcomer. This methodology which aligns ads with the surrounding content, lost its spotlight as advertisers pivoted towards behavioral targeting, a strategy yielding superior outcomes by delivering personalized ads.

Yet, the relentless pursuit of personalization led to an overindulgence, raising concerns among users about data misuse and their digital safety.

The privacy concerns of users led to the introduction of strict guidelines by GDPR and CCPA along with major browsers banning the use of third-party cookies.

These changes have made advertisers retrace their steps to an older path of advertising – Contextual Advertising.

Contextual display advertising focuses on aligning the ad with the content of the web page rather than emphasizing the user’s data.

The AI-powered system scans the webpage’s content and serves the most relevant advertisement based on contextual cues.

For example, a user engrossed in an article about car maintenance encounters an ad spotlighting the latest automobile release by a prominent brand. Here, the connection is made not through personal data but through content relevance.

Contextual targeting 2.0: Why is it better this time around?

As the world moves forward, contextual advertising is pacing up with it!
The recent advancements in algorithms have helped advertisers to perform hyper-contextual targeting.

Natural language processing (NLP) is used to analyze the text content of web pages in order to help advertisers understand the context of the content. 

Machine learning is used to develop algorithms that can predict the likelihood of a user clicking on an ad. This can enhance the ROIs and ensure advertisers that they are only paying for ads that are likely to be clicked on.

Hyper-contextual targeting is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to revolutionize the way that advertising is targeted. As AI and ML continue to develop, hyper-contextual targeting is likely to become even more accurate and effective, leading to better results for advertisers and publishers alike.

Get Started with Contextual Advertising Today!

AdTech organizations are taking full leverage of this evolving time!
Silverpush, a leading ad tech organization, has introduced Mirrors, an AI solution for programmatic contextual advertising.

Mirrors comprehensively scan webpages, including text, images, and videos. Utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP), it identifies keywords and categorizes content. Additionally, the AI-powered technology employs frame-by-frame analysis for image recognition, effectively identifying faces, logos, and various activities within images.

Furthermore, Mirrors employs semantic analysis on the content of a webpage. This enables the extraction of significant information, including emotions and instances of sarcastic expression. This extracted information contributes to the deployment of relevant advertisements.

Still not convinced? We have more!

Unlocking Advantages

1. Abides by strict privacy guidelines: According to a study, 72% of Americans are concerned about their privacy.

Contextual advertising abides by the privacy guidelines set by GDPR, COPPA, and CCPA as it doesn’t rely on cookies rather it depends on the content the user is consuming.

2. Drives high Return on Investment and Return on Ad Spend: Contextual advertising leverages the already generated interest of the user. Since the user is already intrigued by the topic, the chances of the user clicking on relevant ads increase significantly.

3. Relevant to the user: The audience demands relevancy, when tailored ads are shown to the user they feel more comfortable. According to a study, 79% of UK consumers are comfortable seeing contextual ads.

4. Brand safe: While focusing on user privacy advertisers also need to focus on their brand’s safety as well. Brands’ reputations must not be compromised at any cost. Wrong ad placements have often led to a damaged reputation and revenue loss. Since ads are placed based on relevancy, brands can ensure that their ads are placed in brand-safe and suitable environments.

Final Thoughts

Contextual advertising becomes a sustainable choice for the advertising landscape. As tracking methods like cookies are fading away and brands and advertisers are emphasizing privacy-focused targeting approaches.

Combining contextual targeting with artificial intelligence and machine learning can provide advertisers with valuable information for effective targeting. This approach offers a wide range of insights to help advertisers reach the right audience and fit seamlessly in the evolving landscape.

For advertisers, protecting their brand from inappropriate content is of utmost priority. When advertisements appear alongside harmful content, it has the potential to significantly damage the brand’s reputation. According to data, 54% of consumers hold a negative perception of brands that associate themselves with morally conflicting content.

This, in turn, can have a substantial impact on their advertising revenue, leading to decreased click-through rates (CTRs) for ad campaigns.

But, protecting your brand image does not equal being too restrictive with keywords or blocking keywords excessively as this can negatively impact your reach and represent a hugely wasted opportunity for both sides of the advertising ecosystem.

If your brand struggles to reach more people due to blocking too many keywords in the past, this blog is here to help. Keep reading to learn how you can avoid overblocking keywords and improve your reach.

How Keyword Overblocking is Killing Reach and Monetization Opportunities

Many advertisers employ brand safety measures to ensure their ads are not displayed alongside inappropriate content. A common example is a children’s brand ensuring their ads don’t appear next to adult-oriented material.

Another layer of protection often used by advertisers and agencies is keyword blocking. This allows them to prevent ads from being shown alongside content containing specific words. For instance, a family-friendly brand might block the keyword “porn.”

However, excessive keyword blocking can lead to a problem called overblocking. This can diminish the reach of your online ads and cause your ads to miss out on relevant searches.

Several reasons highlight why overblocking can harm your ad campaign’s effectiveness:

1. Missed Relevant Searches: Overblocking can prevent your ads from showing up for searches closely related to your target keywords. For example, if you block “free shipping,” your ads might not appear for searches like “buy shoes with free shipping.”

2. Reduced Relevance: Overblocked ads may appear for irrelevant searches, making them less appealing to the audience. This can lead to fewer clicks.

Finding the right approach to keyword blocklists doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all solution. While some keywords (e.g., “terrorist”) are clearly necessary to block, an excessive list can overly restrict your digital advertising. This can lead to less effective spending and disappointing results.

Here’s How to Make Your Advertising More Inclusive

Of course, it’s important to focus our attention on brand safety. But as an industry, we need to think of new ways to implement brand safety without excluding creators based on their sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity.

The keyword blocklists that were relevant in the past might not be as effective today. Even though they needn’t be removed completely, you must regularly update them to avoid mistakenly classifying suitable content as harmful.

Ensure inclusion by amplifying preferred creators’ voices and carefully monitoring brand safety partnerships.

This final point is one we don’t see considered often enough. Working with a third-party brand safety and brand suitability partner can help with your brand safety measures.

Leverage the power of Silverpush, a leader in AI-driven contextual targeting, and its cutting-edge solution, Mirrors.

It offers custom targeting and exclusion themes to accurately detect unsafe content across a comprehensive set of brand safety categories. It ensures that only the unsafe video or page is blocked and not the entire channel or website to
Avoid over-blocking or killing reach.

This is done across multiple platforms, such as YouTube, Openweb, and Meta, using natural language processing (NLP) and semantic analysis.

Moreover, Mirrors’ Multicultural targeting approach ensures avoiding stereotypical assumptions and targets diverse audiences through inclusive and personalized ads that respect individual preferences.

It does not end here, Mirrors offers a multitude of capabilities, to know how Mirrors can effectively solve the overblocking problem and ensure your reach is uncompromised, fill out the form on your right and an expert from our team will contact you soon.

Last Words

In the advertising industry, it’s essential to embrace changes to brand safety measures to ensure that we are not excluding words, phrases or languages that could exclude minority groups. It’s time to move forward with your approaches to brand safety. When we do, we’ll be creating an online world that promotes positivity and inclusivity.

Advertisers are focusing on capturing the attention of young content consumers but why?

Children are an important demographic for advertisers as they have a significant impact on their parents’ buying decisions.

A study revealed, 94% of parents have been co-viewing more content intended for their young ones in the last 12 months.

In this blog, we will explore how advertisers can overcome these challenges by leveraging contextual targeting techniques for kid’s advertising. 

According to a survey, 9 out of 10 children can easily access YouTube.

But targeting them isn’t easy because COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and other regulatory authorities have set guidelines that ensure that kids aren’t exposed to unsafe content.

But 20 percent of the inventory on children’s streaming was not COPPA compliant, meaning it was aimed at adults.

Advertisers have been deploying adult ads on kid’s channels (like POGO, Cartoon Network, Hungama, and many more) to target the masses. This wasn’t done directly but the ads showed were like a famous automobile brand car crashing. This happened because many advertisers failed to implement the kids’ advertising guidelines.

Apart from mismatched ad placements, advertisers have to face many challenges while advertising on kid’s platforms.

What are the Big Concerns for Advertisers in Kid’s Advertising?

1. Issue with Transparency

Problem: Advertisers often face challenges in ensuring transparency in their advertising efforts. They need to know where their ads are being placed and whether they are. This becomes even more critical when advertising to children.

Solution: Contextual targeting can be beneficial as it offers maximum transparency. It is an effective solution for ensuring transparency in kids-themed advertising. By analyzing the content and context of the webpage or app, advertisers can ensure their ad is placed in an appropriate environment that resonates with their target audience. Further with this approach of targeting, advertisers have control over their ad reach. With the help of inclusion and exclusion lists, advertisers can granularly target their audience.

For example, a person who wants to create awareness about a new course on Open Web: the advertiser can filter the audience based on their age, education, location, job experience, job title, and many more. Based on these requirements of the advertiser, the ad will be deployed on relevant content.

2. No Retargeting

Problem: Retargeting plays a crucial role in advertising by reaching out to potential customers who have already shown interest in a brand or product. However, when advertising on children’s content, due to privacy concerns and regulations advertisers can’t retarget them.

Retargeting can be accomplished because contextual targeting relies on content.

Solution: Contextual targeting allows advertisers to focus on the content itself rather than individual user data. By analyzing the context of the content, advertisers can deliver relevant ads to the intended audience without relying on personal information or tracking cookies. This approach enables effective retargeting based on the content that aligns with children’s interests and preferences.

3. Ad Wastage

Problem: Ad wastage occurs when ads are shown to irrelevant audiences, resulting in inefficient spending and decreased Return on Investment (ROI). In kids-themed advertising, it is crucial to ensure that ads are reaching the right audience to maximize their impact.

Relevancy is the key to reduce ad wastage.

Solution: By analyzing the content and understanding the themes, keywords, and context of kids-themed content, advertisers can ensure their ads are displayed to the most relevant audience. With the help of frequency capping contextual targeting reduces ad wastage by not targeting the non-engaged audience. Further, advertisers can optimize the campaign to target only interested audiences.

3. Wrong Ad Placement

Problem: Placing ads in inappropriate or irrelevant contexts can harm a brand’s reputation, especially when advertising to children.

The contextual targeting approach eliminates the chance of wrong ad placement

Solution: By leveraging contextual ads, advertisers can deliver their ads in an environment that is relevant and suitable for kids. Contextual targeting offers brand safety and suitability. With content analysis it ensures brand safety and the exclusion list acts as an additional layer of protection. This list is prepared based on the brand’s risk-taking capabilities.

How to Reach Target Audience Contextually?

Silverpush offers cutting-edge technology Mirrors, the next-generation artificial intelligence. It works on contextual triggers, faces, logos, emotions, on-screen text, actions, objects, and location. These contextual triggers work on two broad content categories: video and text.

For example, a baby brand wants to target the audience on Facebook for its new baby powder. With the help of contextual triggers, a brand can reach its target audience. The triggers may include The face of Mason Smith (parenting influencer ), the logo of First Cry, Johnson’s Baby, objects like Baby toys, Baby products, and actions like women bathing a baby, and men combing baby hair.

The AI will scan thousands of pages. During this process, it will perform word-by-word and frame-by-frame scans to identify contextual triggers. Post selecting high-performing pages, triggers, and brand safety guidelines, AI technology will place the most suitable ad.

Brands can utilize this opportunity to advertise on YouTube, Facebook, and Openweb.
Semantic analysis, Natural Language Processing, Dynamic Creative Optimisation, image annotation, and several other compilations of technologies ensure the right moment, platform, creativity, and audience.

Conclusion

Advertising to children requires a strategic approach that takes into account the challenges and sensitivities involved. Contextual targeting offers a viable solution for advertisers looking to advertise on kids-themed content.

By leveraging the power of content analysis, advertisers can ensure transparency, retargeting, reduce ad wastage, and eliminate the risk of wrong ad placement.

As the advertising landscape continues to evolve, contextual targeting provides a valuable tool for advertisers seeking to connect with young audiences while maintaining brand integrity and responsibility.

Let’s face the truth: THIRD-PARTY COOKIES ARE LONG GONE!

Advertisers need to drastically shift from conventional targeting methods (requiring audience data) to privacy-focused strategies without compromising on delivering relevant ads.

Traditional targeting methods relied on cookies to reach targeted audiences by building a detailed profile of their online activity.

Growing data privacy concerns and the implementation of regulations like CCPA and GDPR raise the dilemma – how to balance between delivering personalized and relevant ads while respecting user privacy?

Enters Mirrors Generative AI, the next-gen contextual planning tool capable of discovering audiences without cookies and reaching them precisely in contextually relevant moments. The highly advanced tool was recently launched by Silverpush at its Cannes Lions 2023 debut.

Amplifying Relevance and Reach with Generative AI-Powered Contextual Advertising

Mirrors, the flagship product of Silverpush, has recently integrated Generative AI into its contextual advertising technology to help brands reconnect with their untapped audiences.

It is a revolution that will boost the ever-present contextual intelligence by discovering newer audience personas without any human bias, guesswork, or stereotypes of the past.

By leveraging its predictive AI technology, Mirrors goes beyond the basics and delves deep into the content consumption habits of the target audience.

Utilizing advanced generative AI technology, Mirrors carefully analyzes videos frame by frame and scans webpages, surveys, and a wide range of content on the open web, examining each word with precision.

This enables Mirrors to uncover patterns, decipher meaning, and extract valuable insights that surpass surface-level understanding.

Challenges Faced by Advertisers in Finding Contexts Manually

To maximize engagement, advertisers aim to target diverse audience personas based on their specific interests, timing, and context. However, relying on manual context-building methods has certain limitations.

1. Scale and Complexity: Manually creating context triggers for a large volume of content can be a time-consuming and complex task. Advertisers may struggle to keep up with the constantly evolving content landscape and the need to identify and update relevant triggers across various platforms and channels.

2. Subjectivity and Bias: Manual context trigger creation involves human judgment, which can introduce subjectivity and bias. Advertisers may have different interpretations of content, resulting in inconsistent or inaccurate context triggers that may not align with the intended audience or message.

3. Limited Contextual Understanding: Fully comprehending the context of every piece of content manually can be challenging. Advertisers may miss subtle nuances, references, or trends that could impact the appropriateness of ad placement.

4. Resource Intensity: Creating and managing manual context triggers requires dedicated resources, including skilled personnel, time, and effort. Advertisers may face limitations in terms of available resources, hindering their ability to effectively build and maintain comprehensive sets of context triggers.

5. Timeliness and Real-time Updates: Content evolves rapidly, and new trends and topics emerge regularly. Advertisers may struggle to keep their manual context triggers up to date, leading to potential misalignment between ads and current content relevance.

6. Scalability and Adaptability: As advertising campaigns scale and expand across different platforms and channels, managing manual context triggers becomes more challenging. Advertisers may find it difficult to adapt their triggers to new formats, channels, or emerging content types.

Eliminating Human Bias and Automating Context Discovery

The real power of Mirrors Generative AI lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate AI as a co-pilot to human intelligence. The advanced technology builds a comprehensive context list, well aligned with the audience’s personas and their direct and alternate interests. This enables advertisers to reach untapped/overlooked yet relevant audiences, resulting in enhancing incremental reach.

Why Plan Your Next Campaign With Mirrors Generative AI?

1. Cookieless Audience Discovery: The contextual planning tool will enable advertisers to identify contextually relevant audiences without relying on third-party cookies.

2. Scale without Compromise: Better contextual relevance leads to improved audience understanding, which can often be overlooked. By tapping into these overlooked audiences, advertisers can enhance their reach and engagement.

3. Understand Multicultural Audience: Mirrors Generative AI uses diverse datasets to assess performance across races and cultures. Then, analyzing metrics and understanding the emotional impact, bias, inclusion, and purchasing intent. This generates audience personas and passion points, offering advertisers valuable insights for informed decision-making.

4. Create Highly Customized Campaigns: Utilizing Mirrors Generative AI offers the opportunity to go beyond pre-defined taxonomies and gain unparalleled flexibility in creating highly customized campaigns.

Ready to Experience 3X Audience Expansion with Mirrors Generative AI?

It’s your time to broaden your audience reach with Mirrors Generative. To know how our advanced tool can boost your ROI fill and widen your reach with precision out the form on the right.

Advertising is a crucial element for any brand as it drives its revenue by pursuing customers from the beginning of the funnel, that is, brand awareness to conversion. Along with customer acquisition, it also generates strong brand awareness and builds a brand image.

The advertising landscape today is facing the issue of users’ online privacy which has become an alarming concern for brands. It is moving towards privacy-first advertising.

“66% of consumers have expressed discomfort with businesses and brands tracking their browsing history to deliver personalized ads.”

This statistic highlights a growing unease among internet users regarding the use of their data for targeted advertising purposes. As a result, businesses and advertisers are increasingly seeking alternative strategies that respect user privacy while still delivering relevant and engaging advertisements. In this context, finding a balance between personalized advertising and privacy has become crucial for brands to maintain consumer trust and loyalty.

Mirrors is a contextual advertising solution for the open web by Silverpush which is helping brands tap into the audience while abiding by the privacy guidelines set by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

How can Mirrors be a Game Changer in a Privacy-First Environment?

More and more internet users worldwide are expressing increased concern about their online privacy, with 67% of the population is  stating that they are more concerned than ever. A study found that 81% of people prefer to see ads that are relevant to their browsing experience, and 65% of consumers have a more positive opinion of brands that offer contextually relevant ads.
And, with this, brands need to be more concerned about their advertising strategies to navigate this shift in consumer mindset.

To address these concerns and preferences, contextual advertising has emerged as an effective solution. The AI-powered technology analyzes the content of the webpage and deploys the most relevant ad based on contextual triggers. These triggers include frame-by-frame and word-by-word scans of the content. With this approach, advertisers ensure that the user is targeted with the most relevant ad on
Contextual ad targeting also benefits advertisers by providing a higher number of relevant ads to consumers. Since the ads are displayed based on the content of the page, they are more likely to align with users’ interests and increase engagement.

For example, if a user is looking for the latest laptop, the AI will target the user with the most relevant ad that will be related to the content of the webpage.

Another benefit is that, unlike other targeting methods, contextual advertising doesn’t rely on collecting or storing personal data about users, alleviating privacy concerns. This form of targeting offers a privacy-friendly approach that aligns with users’ increasing concerns about data usage. It delivers relevant ads based on webpage content, enhancing user experience and generating more positive perceptions of brands.

But why has contextual advertising been a widely accepted approach?

Contextual advertising has been a widely accepted approach because in the changing landscape of advertising it aligns the best with the requirements of users and advertisers.
Today, users expect privacy assurance more than a personalized ad experience. They want their identity and information to be safe as they browse the web.

Keeping the rising concerns in mind, major browsers like Firefox, Safari (Apple), and Opera banned third-party cookies from use and Google Chrome began working on the alternative.

Third-party cookies have historically played a significant role in behavioral targeting. Here’s an overview of their role:

1. Collecting User Data: Third-party cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s browser by a website other than the one they are currently visiting. These cookies allow third-party advertising networks or tracking companies to collect data about a user’s browsing behavior, such as the websites they visit, the pages they view, and the products they are interested in. This data is crucial for behavioral targeting.

2. Profiling and Segmentation: With the help of third-party cookies, advertisers were able to create user profiles and segment audiences based on their browsing habits and interests. By tracking users across multiple websites, third-party cookies gathered a wealth of information that helped advertisers understand individual preferences and tailor their advertising messages accordingly.

3. Personalized Advertisements: Advertisers use the information provided by the third party to serve relevant ads based on a user’s browsing history and interests.

4. Retargeting: Third-party cookies enable retargeting, where ads are shown to users who have previously interacted with a brand or visited a specific website, thereby increasing the chances of conversion.

5. Measurement and Analytics: Advertisers could monitor click-through rates, conversions, and other key performance indicators by leveraging the data stored in these cookies. This information helps advertisers optimize their campaigns, refine their targeting strategies, and make data-driven decisions.

These factors increased concerns about privacy among users which lead to drastic changes in the advertising. Hence, contextual targeting has become a useful alternative to survive in this dynamic advertising landscape.

Conclusion

The advertising landscape will continue to evolve, advertisers must find a solution that caters to the privacy concerns of the user without diverting from personalized messaging. Advertisers are rapidly inclining towards the contextual targeting approach. This is because it is the only and best available option to gain a competitive edge. This approach not only ensures safety but also drives better results and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

It’s time to secure an A+ in your back to school advertising! Captivate your audience and establish your brand as the go-to choice with contextual advertising.

As students in the United States prepare to say goodbye to their summer freedom and head back to school, parents are bracing themselves to say goodbye to their paycheck.

Returning to school after a refreshing and long summer break is one of the most important times of the year for both students and parents.

Whether it’s stocking up on stylish new school clothes to checking off every item on the school supply list, the retail industry recognizes the excitement and significance of this time of year, which requires loads of preparation.

As the school bells ring and summon students back to the back-to-school premises, it’s time for the brands to return as well.

Seizing the opportunity during this prime time, amidst the return of rival brands armed with improved targeting strategies and ads, how do you plan to connect with your targeted back-to-school shoppers precisely at the right moment, place, and with the perfect message? Look no further than Mirrors AI-powered contextual advertising to guide the way!

Who are the Back to School Shopping Audiences?

1. Parents
2. College Students
3. Teachers and Educators
4. School Administrators and Decision-Makers
5. Online Influencers and Bloggers
6. Early Childhood Education Centers
7. Adult Learners

Also read: Targeting Back-to-School Shoppers with Contextual Advertising

What are the Back to School Shopping Trends of 2023?

Some back-to-school trends advertisers should consider while creating this year’s seasonal marketing plan.

1.  The increasing popularity of online shopping. More and more consumers are choosing to shop for back-to-school supplies online, as it is more convenient and often offers better deals.

2. Another trend is the growing importance of sustainability. More and more consumers are looking for sustainable options when shopping for back-to-school supplies. This means viewing sustainable ads or choosing products that are made from recycled materials or that are produced in an environmentally friendly way.

3. Shoppers are starting much earlier. Although the summer months still draw the heaviest activity, the back-to-school season now spans six months or even longer as many shoppers are:

• • Buying early to avoid the pandemic-driven product supply issues of recent years.
  • Taking advantage of sales events whenever they may occur.
  • Trying to spread out their expenses over a longer period of time.

4. Parents have returned to physical stores. In-store shopping was expected to garner 49% of back-to-school sales in 2022 (versus 43% in 2021) when 42% of consumers told Deloitte they would only shop in physical locations (vs. 17% who would do it all online). That share of seasonal sales will likely increase again in 2023.

5. Finally, there is a growing trend towards personalization. More and more consumers are looking for back-to-school supplies that are personalized to their child’s interests. This means choosing products that feature their child’s favorite characters or sports teams.

Importance of Back to School Advertising for Brands

Back-to-school shoppers spent $168 more on school supplies in 2022, presenting a significant opportunity for the brand to expand reach and ROI. The compelling statistics will speak for themselves.

1. In 2022, the back-to-school season generated around $37 billion in sales in the United States.

2. The average family in the US spends $600 on back-to-school supplies.

3. 41% of shoppers planned an omni-shopping experience for desk/locker accessories, 35% in-store, and 25% online purchases.

4. 56% of back-to-school shoppers will start searching for supplies in early July and 88% of consumers are still waiting for their official school supply lists.

5. 8 in 10 consumers plan to use mid-July’s sales and events to shop for back-to-school supplies specifically.

Reach Where Your Targeted Back to School Shoppers Are

1. YouTube and Google are the top research platforms for shoppers before making purchases.

2. 25% of parents consult Facebook for BTS shopping inspiration.

3. US advertisers prioritized increased spending on social media (44%) and CTV/OTT (39%) for their back-to-school campaigns.

4. 62% of in-store purchases were consumables, compared to 10% online, with 28% of shoppers opting for an omnichannel shopping experience.

5. 41% of shoppers preferred an omni-shopping experience for desk/locker accessories, while 35% opted for in-store purchases and 25% chose online purchases.

Challenges of Using Traditional Methods for Back to School Advertising 

1. Ad waste: Traditional advertising methods are exposed to a vast number of ads, making it difficult for advertisers to capture their attention and stand out from the competition.

2. Fragmented Audiences: Back-to-school shoppers can be found across various demographics and platforms, making it challenging for advertisers to reach them effectively using traditional methods. With the proliferation of digital channels and social media platforms, the audience is fragmented, and targeting specific segments becomes more complex.

3. Limited Targeting Options: Traditional advertising methods may offer limited targeting options compared to digital advertising. Advertisers may struggle to reach specific subsets of back-to-school shoppers based on their demographics, interests, and online behavior, resulting in wasted ad spend and reduced effectiveness.

4. Lack of Interactivity and Personalization: Traditional advertising methods typically lack interactivity and personalization, which are crucial for engaging back-to-school shoppers. Advertisers may struggle to create tailored and interactive experiences that resonate with their target audience, limiting their ability to establish a meaningful connection and drive conversions.

5. Difficulty in Message Customization: Traditional advertising methods often have limitations when it comes to customizing messages based on the unique needs and preferences of back-to-school shoppers. Advertisers may struggle to deliver personalized and relevant content that effectively communicates their value proposition.

Mirrors, Silverpush’s advanced hyper-contextual advertising technology, effectively targets and engages back-to-school shoppers. By intelligently detecting faces, logos, texts, objects, and actions, Mirrors strategically places ads that deeply resonate with your desired audiences, reaching them at the right time and place with complete brand safety and suitability.

Final Words

The back-to-school season is an opportune time for brands to reach their targeted audiences at the time when they are most likely to engage with the ad and convert. Mirrors offers the solution you need to effectively engage with back-to-school shoppers. Simply fill out the form on the right, and our team will be in touch with you shortly to help you seize this valuable opportunity.

The FMCG industry is a vital component of the global economy, contributing significantly to a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and job creation. As a major driver of consumer spending, FMCG plays an essential role in various aspects of the economy.

The FMCG market size was evaluated to be 716.3 Billion in 2022 and the CAGR growth rate is expected to be 4.41% from 2023 to 2028.

The market size of the FMCG industry has significantly grown in the U.S., China, and other developed markets. Keeping the growth in mind, the experts are predicting 70% growth on a global scale. The World Bank predicts that in terms of consumer market the FMCG market in India will take the third place surpassing Japan and Germany by 2030.

The consumer industry is a highly competitive landscape, with brands vying for market share based on product type, production techniques, and distribution channels. However, in this fiercely contested arena, advertising is the key to success for them. But the advertisers are facing a set of challenges in the advertising landscape.

What are the Advertising Challenges Faced by the FMCG Industry?

According to a study, till 2023, FMCG firms were expected to raise their digital advertising spending by 7% yearly. FMCG expenditure decreased by 10.7% to $ 26.7 billion in 2020, a more significant decrease than the whole advertising industry.

But utilizing the ad spend is a bigger and more important factor. Since the FMCG industry is flooded with brands and products, getting brand visibility and brand recognition are the two main purposes of advertising for them. To achieve both goals choosing an appropriate advertising approach is crucial. But due to a shift in consumer behavior creating a positive and solid brand image has become difficult.

The consumer has become more empowered and they want to control everything they see, especially in the virtual space. They want to see the ads of their interest but without getting digitally stalked. 72% of people believe that virtually all of what they do online is being monitored by advertising, technology corporations, or other businesses, and 81% believe that the threats can surpass the possible rewards of data collecting.

Not only the audience but the traditional advertising ways have often led brands to face consequences of negative branding due to wrong ad placement. This not only damaged their reputation but also resulted in ad wastage.

The Rise of Contextual Advertising

Have you ever noticed that whenever you walk into a supermarket to get one item from the shelf you end up filling the cart? This is because at that moment you were interested in the items, they were relevant and you were triggered to buy them.

Contextual advertising is similar!

Through contextual targeting, advertisers reach the target audience at the right moment which triggers them to engage with the brand. According to a study, 79% of respondents agreed that they were comfortable with the ads that are relevant to them. Also, 65% said they would be more tempted to buy from relevant ads.

How can the FMCG Industry be Benefitted from Contextual Ads?

One approach to take advantage of the opportunity is through omnichannel contextual advertising. Silverpush’s remarkable AI-powered solution, Mirrors, ensures brand safety and suitability across various advertising channels. The high-powered AI technology ensures the message reaches the right audience.

Mirrors scan the blogs and videos, word by word and frame by frame. The AI-powered technology works on six detectors, renowned faces, logos, locations, emotions, objects, and actions to place the relevant ads.

1. YouTube

For the FMCG industry, video advertising is the most suitable ad format. YouTube offers various ad formats and advertisers can choose the most suitable format for them. According to a study, 88% of video marketers were satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing on social media.

In the past, an FMCG brand chose 1 video creative to connect and interact with the target audience. The campaign has delivered more than 9 million impressions in 28 days.

Post-campaign analysis the brand concluded that they had reached more than 5 million unique users. The campaign performed beyond the industry benchmarks as it surpassed the planned KPIs (VTR).

2. Open Web

Relevant advertising can be shown depending on the webpage content that the target audience has viewed. The mirror captures the audience’s attention, without invading the user’s privacy. This gives users a sense of safety and the advanced AI-powered technology ensures that the ad is placed in a brand-safe environment.

3. Meta

To extract contextual signals that enable the distribution of real-time, in-the-moment advertising for outstanding results, Mirrors carefully select and examine brand-safe Facebook pages. Models for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are used to do this.

4. CTV

On most streaming TV services, CTV represents over 80% of all viewing. The remaining 20% is accounted for the other devices connected to the internet (laptops, smartphones, and tablets).
As per studies, ad spending on linear and connected TV (CTV) combined will increase from $87.24 billion to more than $100 billion in 2026. This will be due to the surge in CTV viewing.
When marketers purchase advertising space on CTV, their commercials are played to viewers when they stream movies, TV series, and other content to their linked television. To ensure brand safety, ads are delivered in the proper context with the help of semantic analysis, content analysis, and customized ad segments.

Takeaways

The advertising arena is changing rapidly and for the FMCG industry, it is their primary source of establishing brand recall. Contextual advertising can be a game-changer for them as it will help them in capitalizing on the interest of the user. It will help drive engagement without intervening with the privacy of the user. Also, omnichannel advertising can play a significant role in strengthening brand recognition.

Pride month is in full swing, with the month of June on its way. The LGBTQ community globally accounts for 4.6 trillion US dollars. The community has been globally in the news, as many countries recognize them and are helping them live free lives.
Pride Month is celebrated in honor of individuals who were involved in the Stonewall Riots of 1969. With the glitter and rainbow flags, people join the festivities. whereas, by changing logo colors, sharing pride month trivia and social media post advertisers tap into every opportunity for pride month advertising.

How Brands Leveraged Pride Month Before?

Pride advertising is another example of moment advertising which brings huge reach for brands and a chance to make a long-lasting impression. Burger King and Honey Maid are the two brands that made the most out of the pride month advertising in 2014.

Proud Whopper

In 2014, Burger King ran the ” Be Your Own Way” campaign under which it launched “Proud Whopper”. It was a spin on its “Have It Your Way” brand positioning.
During the pride parade, it launched its Whooper burger that came in rainbow-colored wrappers. What intrigued the audience with this burger was the strong message which resonated with them. It said, “We are all the same inside”.

The campaign stood out as it received 7 million views across all social media channels. There were more than 5.3 million views on the YouTube video alone. 20% of Americans saw the Proud Whopper advertisement, and young millennials over-indexed by 4.8X.

This is Wholesome

Honey Maid recognized a chance to engage with its consumers while highlighting its long history and commitment to inclusivity by honoring the variety of the contemporary family.
Over 8 million people had seen the 30-second ad on YouTube. According to YouTube statistics, Honey Maid was able to determine that 97% of the ad’s video views came from those aged 25 to 54 using age and gender targeting. Women help the majority in viewership as they accounted for 98%.

But there was an obstacle that arose during the campaign. The message of the campaign did not resonate with everyone which led to negative tweets and comments.
Honey Maid saw it as an opportunity to tap into the audience’s mind and capitalized on it. They created a clever response to the negativity. They made a video ad, where two artists utilized printouts of all the critical comments to form the word “LOVE”.

It was straightforward and effective, giving Honey Maid another opportunity to demonstrate its dedication to the causes of diversity and equality as well as its support for the LGBTQ community.

More than 4 million people viewed “Love.” According to YouTube data, the first 90 days of views were equally split between males and women, and over a quarter of viewers were millennials under the age of 24.

What are the Key Takeaways?

Both campaigns significantly benefited the brand by building strong brand awareness. But another key takeaway that advertisers had was the importance of a message to resonate with the audience. Engaging the audience emotionally is a simple yet strong way to make a place in people’s hearts.

How to Make the Most from Pride Advertising In 2023?

The advertising landscape has transformed a lot. Privacy-focused future have made Apple and Firefox take the revolutionary step by banning the use of third-party cookies whereas Google is planning a strategic phase-out while working on alternatives.

So, how can brands make the most during the pride month?

Contextual Advertising is one of the ways to capitalize on the opportunity. Mirrors is a revolutionary AI-powered technology offered by Silverpush that ensures advanced brand safety.

The high-powered AI technology ensures that the message reaches the right audience at the right time. Mirrors scan the blog by reading every word and interpreting it just like the human mind whereas for videos it watches every frame.

To place the relevant ad, Mirrors works on six detectors, renowned faces, logos, locations, emotions, objects, and actions.

This year, advertisers can make the most through pride month by relying on omnichannel contextual advertising as Mirrors can function across multi-channels.

1. YouTube

Video ads are widely acceptable, and they accounted for 82% of global internet traffic in 2022. The in-video context detectors help Mirrors find the relevant ads. This increases the possibilities of users engaging with the brands as it is relevant to the user when they are highly intrigued.

2. Open Web

Based on the content of the webpage consumed by the target audience, AI-based technology can place relevant ads.

3. Meta

Mirrors carefully choose and analyze brand-safe Facebook pages to extract contextual signals that enable the distribution of real-time, in-the-moment advertising with remarkable performance. This is done with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) models.

4. CTV

Ads are displayed in appropriate surroundings using semantic analysis, content analysis, and customized ad segments to prevent inappropriate placement depending on user emotions and behavior. Facebook is the best place for people with varied interests.

Conclusion

Advertising for Pride is more than simply recognizing and appreciating the LGBTQ community. It is the opportunity for brands to communicate their truth and take a position. According to a study, 45% of consumers under 34 years old say they’re more likely to do repeat business with an LGBTQ-friendly company. It is time for brands to take this opportunity to attract their desired audience contextually.