Editor’s note: Nicole Jones is SVP client management channel growth at market research firm Kantar, New York.
FTC investigations, advertisers returning to Twitter, Musk’s ongoing PR rollercoaster … It comes as no surprise that many marketers are still playing “wait and see” when it comes to Twitter, especially as questions around brand safety and privacy compliance continue to evolve.
Despite these raised concerns, some advertisers (including Disney and privacy- juggernaut Apple, at the time of this writing) have continued leveraging Twitter as part of their marketing campaigns. Yet others have begun investing in and experimenting with other platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok, with the latter making a big push to capture the ad dollars that hang in the balance.
To understand how to navigate brand safety on Twitter and across social channels in general, brands need to recognize what consumers are truly concerned about; how their expectations and emotions are evolving; and how 2023 media trends will affect the brand safety conversation.
Meta, then Facebook, faced similar widespread scrutiny as part of the Stop Hate For Profit movement. And prior to that, there were concerns over YouTube marketing. Brand safety has been a concern for marketers since the dawn of advertising. How your ad shows up and the context that accompanies your creative has a massive impact on your campaign’s ultimate success.
What’s different in 2023? Consumers are much more aware and sensitive to their ad experiences, in part because new regulations and moves from players like AT&T regularly ask consumers if they want to allow tracking. Kantar’s Media Reactions 2022 report (registration required) found the excessive targeting using personal data as well as repetitiveness or being “too seen” is a major turn-off for consumers.
This creates a lot of debate around how to approach getting and maintaining attentio...