brand safety

Definition

Ensuring your ads don't appear next to content that makes your company look terrible, like extremist videos or conspiracy theories. Surprisingly difficult to achieve at scale.

Example Usage

After our yogurt ad appeared next to a violent video, we implemented strict brand safety controls and blacklisted half the internet.

Origin

Gained prominence following major brand safety scandals on YouTube in 2017

Fun Fact

Major advertisers once pulled millions in spend from YouTube after finding their ads funding extremist content, creating the 'adpocalypse.'

Source: Digital advertising industry standards and practices

Related Terms

Beginner

brand voice

The distinctive personality and emotional tone a brand uses in all communications, from tweets to customer service emails. It's what makes Wendy's roast people on Twitter while your bank sounds like a lawyer wrote everything—which they probably did.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

Market Fit

The magical moment when your product actually solves a problem people are willing to pay for, which happens far less often than startup founders would have you believe. Finding product-market fit is like finding a parking spot downtown: everyone says they have a strategy, but mostly it's just luck.

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viewable impression

An ad impression that actually appeared on a user's screen for a measurable duration, as opposed to loading in a tab they never opened. The advertising industry's reluctant admission that billing for invisible ads was perhaps unethical.

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marketing automation platform

Software that automatically sends emails, scores leads, and nurtures prospects based on behavioral triggers, allowing marketers to annoy people at scale without manual effort. It's how brands pretend mass communication is personalized.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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Value Proposition

A fancy way of explaining why someone should give you money instead of your competitor. It's the corporate pickup line -- it sounds rehearsed, slightly desperate, and works about 10 percent of the time.

💼 Corporate / Business📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

product feed

Structured data file containing your product catalog information that feeds into shopping platforms and dynamic ads. The spreadsheet that launches a thousand SKUs into the digital marketplace, assuming you formatted everything correctly.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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