Media release – 9th March 2022
AANA encourages brands to help combat disinformation
In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, AANA urges advertisers and ad platforms to act to ensure their digital advertising dollars are not supporting bad actors and the increasing use of disinformation as a state tool.
The AANA is a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising.
Digital platforms have already taken steps to shut down disinformation and support counter-narratives via credible sources. The AANA is now urging advertisers to take their own steps by following GARM‘s guidance on advertising during times of war.
“We encourage everyone to follow the suggestions from the GARM initiative and are confident Australian advertisers, and their media agencies, are committed to avoiding the acceleration or funding of harmful content”, says Julie Flynn, AANA CEO.
The guidance details what steps ad buyers and sellers can do right now to ensure their digital media reach is used for good, and not hijacked by bad actors:
Step 1 – Restrict bad actor access to ecosystem:
- If you’re an ad seller: State actors and their affiliates and support networks must be closed off from users where possible and demonetised without a doubt. Thankfully the EU has emboldened the action here, and the supply side should continue to take steps here.
- If you’re an ad buyer: Consider restricting where you buy and how you buy. Indirect buying via programmatic must be scrutinised to the fullest extent. Indices within indices that can obscure outlets, where bad actors play a ‘game of submarining’ should be removed. Ask your partners what they are doing to chase misinformation off their platform, how they are managing their own inclusion and exclusions lists for monetisation.
Step 2 – Tighten your monetisation criteria:
- If you’re an ad seller: You should be restricting monetisation now. We know all too well from previous elections that states can be sophisticated in propping up accounts. If you monetise content and channels please review criteria, if you monetise users consider category exclusions, and consider some of the steps expressed in the bold moves shared above.
Step 3 – Protect ad buys at scale with lists and precision keywords:
- If you’re an ad buyer: Now is a great time to revisit and refresh your keyword list. In the words of our agency experts and some of the platforms – treat it like a search engine query. Also ensure that you’re working with an inclusion and exclusion list that is informed by trusted partners such as NewsGuard and GDI – both partners to GARM and many of WFA’s members. Work to calibrate campaign-level responses regionally.
Step 4 – Directly support the good via an inclusion list:
- If you’re an ad seller: Continue to give a leg up to professional news outlets – again NewsGuard, GDI, JTI/RSF – can help ensure that ad buyers and users looking for news can be in safe and suitable places.
- If you’re an ad buyer: Support your preferred news outlets and drive your organisation’s approach to news into action.
Step 5 – Manage, measure and assess the implementation
- This one is for everyone: Our gold standard approach for brand safety is pre-bid screening based on the GARM Safety Floor and Suitability Framework, in-stream blocking, post-buy transparency, post-campaign analysis. This is our end-to-end control and visibility the industry requires. Very few partners have all of these elements lined up – but now is as good a time as any to see did the plan and the buy match – and if not, how can we adjust things to make them match better?