Forrester study shows Oracle Advertising solutions boost brand safety efforts by 67.5%

Marketing leaders know that brand reputation plays a vital role in their advertising success, but it’s not just about keeping your brand out of unsafe ad environments. Studies show that consumers are highly unlikely to support or make a purchase from a brand whose values do not align with their own. In fact, according to a 2020 Forrester survey, 60% of U.S. adults said they consider brand reputation, brand values, or ESG (environmental, social and governance issues) as the “most important” factors when making a purchase.

This research is highlighted in Forrester’s The Data Digest: Over Half Of US Online Adults Consider Brand Impact When Making A Purchase report, which details just how important brand safety standards are to a business’ bottom line and a brand’s overall reputation.

“Consumer expectations are going to keep rising,” said Forrester Senior Total Economic Impact (TEI) Consultant Nick Ferrif during Oracle’s recent webinar on brand safety strategies, “With more visibility, and more avenues for advertising—and more opportunities for disinformation—that trend will continue. Consumers are only going to get more savvy and demand more from brands.”

Nick, along with Marc Grabowski, GVP of Global Advertising Sales for Oracle, and Kelsey Chickering, Principal Analyst for Forrester, spoke at length during the webinar on the relationship between brand safety and responsible media best practices. For advertisers today, brand safety has become a baseline, allowing them to align to an array of industry standards.  That’s just the starting point, though.  In this ecosystem, it is crucial for them to evolve towards brand suitability and responsible media practices. 

Brand suitability focuses on brand-specific standards that require a custom approach, while responsible media solutions help brands invest media dollars in socially responsible ways to align to their core values. As Nick makes clear, consumer expectations are only going to increase. Meanwhile, the surge of disinformation and fake news is at an all-time high across marketing channels and digital platforms.

So what’s the key to building a solid brand safety strategy? According to our panel of marketing experts, advertisers need sophisticated adtech solutions that ensure their ad spend is not being funneled to misaligned ad environments or less than credible media sources.

The primary challenge for advertisers: Ensuring their media investments align to their values and support an improved ad ecosystem

In today’s hyper-connected world, the consumer focus on value-driven companies requires advertisers to prioritize their efforts to maintain their brand reputation through brand safety, brand suitability, and responsible media practices. The challenge for advertisers is implementing the right adtech to ensure outcomes align to their intentions and that they can continue to scale their targeting efforts, without defunding credible, worthy media sources in the process.

To help advertisers understand the full benefit of Oracle Advertising solutions, we commissioned Forrester to conduct a study on our behalf. The research firm interviewed Oracle Advertising customers and surveyed 107 marketers to determine “The Total Economic Impact” of Oracle Moat Analytics. According to the survey findings, more than 80% of marketers reported that gaining greater access to brand safe and brand suitable  ad environments was a top priority in the next 12 months.

“Considering the many categories of costs and losses that can occur in a brand safety incident, it is very easy to map out scenarios where even a relatively small and short-lived brand incident can quickly rack up anywhere from $100,000 to millions of dollars in labor, costs, and losses,” writes Forrester in the report, “However, there is good news. Brand incidents stemming from advertisements being placed in unsafe environments can often be avoided with the proper tools and processes in place.”

Implementing the right tools and putting effective processes in place is a major win for brands and publishers alike. The answer to reducing brand safety incidents isn’t to defund credible media sources out of fear. Advertisers rely on publishers and want to support the platforms that help them connect—and build stronger relationships—with consumers. The solution is twofold: It requires advertisers adopt responsible media practices while also leveraging solutions that enable them to optimize their campaigns across legitimate publishing sites and media platforms.

How Oracle Advertising solutions improve brand safety, operational efficiencies and more

What Forrester uncovered was eye-opening: By deploying Oracle Moat Analytics in combination with Oracle Prebid segments—rather than relying heavily on keyword blocklists—advertisers experienced a 67.5% improvement in their brand safety capabilities.

That’s not all – in addition to a critical boost in their overall brand safety efforts, the combination of Oracle Moat Analytics with Oracle Advertising Prebid Segments drove:

• A 53% reduction in invalid traffic, significantly reducing wasted ad spend
• A 10% improvement in campaign efficiencies, enabling teams to reallocate resources to higher-value tasks

Forrester also found that 64% of the brands that implemented both Oracle Moat Analytics with Oracle Advertising Prebid Segments reported improved performance when it came to their ad measurement capabilities. Another 61% said Oracle Advertising solutions improved operational efficiencies and effectiveness connected to their programmatic advertising investments.

Even more interestingly, among the customers surveyed by Forrester who reported improved brand safety efforts, nearly 90% confirmed a drop in public relations costs and a reduction in the number of public relations incidents.  Ultimately, a truly effective solution around brand safety simultaneously drives a company’s top line and bottom line.  If a consumer fully believes in the values of a brand, it drives purchases, loyalty, and revenue.  At the same time, the overall benefit to a company’s profit and reputation in avoiding brand safety incidents can often be immeasurable.    

A global senior marketing director in the food and beverage industry told Forrester, “I would argue the programmatic space is extremely dirty right now, and Oracle Moat helps us try and make it cleaner.”

A winning adverting strategy requires effective adtech solutions

The consumer-brand relationship is crucial to a business’ ability to compete. Building a solid relationship with your audience and customers requires a keen focus on your ad spend, making sure you are investing in responsible media outlets that support your brand safety and suitability standards. To remain competitive in today’s advertising landscape—and meet consumer expectations—it is imperative to remain vigilant on how your media strategy and investments influence your reputation and reflect your core values.

The right tools can enable your marketing organization to streamline brand safety tactics and reduce the risk of brand issues and PR disasters that stem from unsafe ad environments.

“Oracle Moat Analytics data has changed our strategy from a macro level,” said a global SVP of advertising operations, “We work with certain partners or change tactics for optimization based on what we are seeing because Oracle Moat Analytics gives us some advanced data that we can’t get from the existing systems.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the findings in Forrester’s “The Total Economic Impact” of Oracle Moat Analytics—and about steps you can take to align your advertising strategies with your brand safety and suitability goals—be sure to watch our on demand webinar: Brand Safety Strategy – How to build and protect your reputation.