By Sacha CartonYou can’t help but notice the rapidly increasing number of brand protection vendors, but why do we need these companies? We didn’t have them before so why do we need them now?Writing on behalf of the pioneer in this space (we delivered the first brand-safe network impressions in 2006), I hope to shed some light on this technology and explain why it is vital for every company that advertises online.The idea of negative side effects of branded ads appearing next to controversial content — such as an airline ad running alongside news of a plane crash — are obvious. In recent years we have seen truly horrendous examples of ad misplacements. The market has moved from relative ignorance to greater adoption.Demand comes from all sectors of the industry as a gap is plugged in the service offering of these organizations. There are, however, misconceptions about what brand protection actually means.There have been many different approaches for brand protection. Companies have experimented, for instance, with developing lists of “clean sites” only to find that the problems exist at page level. But which pages? The same is also true of using site tags whereby publishers classify their content at site or section level. But what sites or sections?Problems also exist with a human site vetting approach, which is both time-consuming and also hugely subjective, as it depends on who is doing the vetting and is subject to that person’s bias and opinion. Some have developed a list of “bad” keywords to solve the problem only to find that, because words have different senses or meanings, this method is useless.Another approach is to fence off content into a “brand safe network” of pre-crawled sites. Sounds pretty idyllic but as market dynamics dictate, the costs would be above market average prices. It also brings back the issue of subjectivity. A network of content without any campaign variations is not a totally brand-safe proposition.So if not these methods, how can we make brand protection actually work?Most effective brand protection technologies involve some form of semantics — analysis of the words on the page to identify key concepts that could potentially be considered controversial by an advertiser and, more important, a potential customer. The semantic analysis identifies key concepts of a page and upon detection of controversial content, either reports the misplacement and enables the user to take action, or compares the page content to a predetermined approved/banned list of controversial content and blocks the ad impression from being delivered.Brand protection technology also brings the marketer so much more actionable information. Full URL level transparency is a key element enhanced by such technology; as we move to a more automated future with the growth of ad exchanges, demand-side platforms and real-time bidding, transparency will be among the biggest weapons in the arsenal.Visibility into where each and every impression has been delivered — right down to the individual page URL –- will be a prerequisite of any solution. Totally blind delivery will soon be passé.Different brand protection solutions approach the problem in different ways thus they arrive at different, and in some cases incorrect, conclusions. Some pre-crawl the data or conduct near or real-time analysis, extracting page content and identifying its brand protection criteria.It is vital, however, that the content upon which the analysis is based is the same as that seen by the reader at the time of loading the page which is not possible with pre-crawling. User-generated content can also change a previously “clean” page into one that an advertiser needs to avoid.Dynamic content is a game changer and while its benefits for the publisher (e.g. interaction with the users, increased content lifecycle, SEO, etc.) are tangible, the potential pitfalls for the advertiser are serious. Because of this, an effective brand protection solution must use a blend of real-time analysis supported by historic crawled data.The concept that brand protection is “one size fits all” with providers determining what content is “controversial” is faulty; what is “safe” for one advertiser is not necessarily the case for another, even within the same sector. Needs change from client to client and campaign to campaign so any preordained idea of brand protection simply does not work.To put it bluntly, brand protection is not media verification and media verification is not brand protection. There is a lot of confusion about these two points as well as a lot of smoke and mirrors.The idea that brand protection is there to audit the placement and position of ads within the confines of a media plan is a misnomer. Brand protection is a preemptive technology and is designed to block ads from appearing next to controversial content. The technology, by definition, removes the need to audit — there are no questionable placements to assess, no screenshots to be taken and no axe to grind with publishers, networks or distribution partners.Brand protection is about preventing ad misplacements, hence protecting brands from potentially damaging negative associations resulting out of negative content adjacencies.The industry is about to enter one of its most exciting times. An explosion of content on the web and new industry technologies such as real-time bidding will free brands to explore the richness and diversity available.Brand protection technologies will encourage more top advertisers to enter the online advertising sector while simultaneously allowing other more established online brands to expand beyond the “safe” path of leading portals and sites into a whole new but equally relevant portfolio. With brand protection technologies in place, brands will be free to explore and enjoy the economies of scale.The importance of a brand protection strategy for all future display media campaigns cannot be underestimated. Not having such a strategy in place is like adding more bullets into a game of Russian Roulette.Written by Sacha Carton, founding partner of Ad Pepper Media, an international online marketing services group offering semantic advertising, lead generation, email marketing, affiliate marketing and adserving solutions.He currently holds several positions - President ofiSense, leading the company’s semantic targeting initiatives, Director Product and Technology Development overseeing all product development activities and Director of the Board.Over his 10-year tenure at ad pepper media he has also held the positions of Director Western Europe and Director Corporate Development helping to establish the company as a leading international online advertising network with 16 offices in ten countries.Prior to ad pepper media, Mr. Carton was co-founder and COO of Fountains – a U.S. based online beverage retailing business and co-founder and COO of Count Zero – a Venezuela based direct marketing service agency.