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Australian advertisers examine UK Google boycott

Max Mason
Max MasonSenior reporter

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Australian advertisers will closely analyse a UK boycott of Google ads, as major brands, including the UK government, pull ads from the technology giant after they were placed alongside undesirable content, such as extremist material and hate speech.

A number of brands and agencies contacted by The Australian Financial Review on Sunday said they will consider the issue this week after reports in the UK gathered momentum over the weekend.

Others said they have been, and will continue to, work closely with Google to protect their brands.

Google has promised to revamp brand protections. 

Several global media and advertising giants are understood to be considering their global positions.

In the UK, advertising and marketing business Havas pulled its local clients' advertising – which includes Domino's Pizza and Hyundai – from Google. The action was limited to the UK and is a temporary move, the company said.

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Havas' Australian operations will not be following suit at this stage. However, it will continue to monitor the situation closely.

The UK government pulled its advertising on Friday after The Times of London revealed the UK government and many major brands had their ads appear with extremist content, hate preachers and anti-semitic material. The Guardian also pulled its ads.

Brand safety is a growing concern, especially in digital advertising, with the ability to have complete oversight over all content, especially user-generated such as YouTube, being difficult.

Significant contributions

Advertising is a major source of revenue for Alphabet, Google's parent company, with significant contributions from Google's display advertising network and video site YouTube.

The San Francisco-based company, along with fellow Silicon Valley tech giant Facebook, has dominated digital advertising, taking up the lion's share of new money and squeezing traditional media such as television and newspapers.

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Australian Association of National Advertisers chief executive Sunita Gloster said advertisers want more action on transparency and accountability in the digital environment.

"Chief marketing officers around the world are now focused on a very significant set of challenges in digital media. They include rising ad fraud from bots and criminal syndicates; advertising viewability."

Ms Gloster said many consumers don't have the opportunity to view ads, many non-audited measurements and claims have been discredited and only 40 cents in every digital dollar reaches the consumer via publishers.

"Advertisers now want fast, decisive action for achieving real transparency and accountability through the media supply chain," she said.

"It's important, media is the biggest single expense in the marketing budget."

On Tuesday the AANA is hosting an event, The Media Challenge, to discuss transparency and effectiveness issues.

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Multi-Channel Network chief executive Anthony Fitzgerald said brand-safe content is the key foundation to any campaign and advertisers are starting to see the effects of being linked to poor content.

Industry pushing message

MCN runs ad sales for Foxtel and Ten and is owned by Foxtel, Fox Sports and Ten.

"The damage that can be done with being associated with poor-quality content is significant and advertisers are now starting to be more exposed than ever before," he said.

Mr Fitzgerald said the media industry, particularly broadcasting via Think TV, is aggressively pushing the message to advertisers that premium content, such as television, offers safety and quality tested metrics.

"This has been going on for a very long time. It's only really now just starting to come to light in its fullness."

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In response to the advertiser boycott in the UK, Google's local managing director Ronan Harris said it will work with publishers, advertisers and agencies to address the issues.

"We've heard from our advertisers and agencies loud and clear that we can provide simpler, more robust ways to stop their ads from showing against controversial content," Mr Harris wrote in a blog post.

"While we have a wide variety of tools to give advertisers and agencies control over where their ads appear, such as topic exclusions and site category exclusions, we can do a better job of addressing the small number of inappropriately monetised videos and content."

He said Google has begun a review of its ad policies and brand controls, and will be making changes in the coming weeks.

Max Mason covers insolvency, courts, regulation, financial crime, cybercrime and corporate wrongdoing. A Walkley Award winner, Max's journalism has also received awards from the National Press Club of Australia, the Kennedy Awards and Citibank. Connect with Max on Twitter. Email Max at max.mason@afr.com

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