Known as the ‘Project Brand Integrity’, the initiative will be implemented by the advertising body and digital advertising insurance provider White Bullet, monitoring pirate websites across the continent for digital ads representing major brands in order to alert and protect advertisers from inadvertent association with criminal activity.
A similar effort was launched in the US in 2016, led by TAG and CreativeFuture, an organisation representing creatives in the copyright industries. The program successfully reduced the number of impressions on pirate content sites in the US by more than 90% over two years, and it has eliminated all ads from premium brand advertisers on those sites.
“Project Brand Integrity will serve as an early warning system for advertisers and their agencies, so we can alert them when their ads have run near stolen content and help them implement effective safeguards to prevent it from happening again. We are delighted to work with White Bullet to jointly enable this program while advancing the European Commission’s important work in this area,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG.
“We at White Bullet are proud to be working with TAG on this important new initiative,” said Peter Szyszko, CEO of White Bullet; “It represents a significant and coordinated platform to assist brands and ad agencies in the EU to enhance their brand safety programs. Our proven data model and dynamic analysis, together with TAG’s expertise and cross-industry coverage, mean we can be confident of reducing ad-supported piracy across the EU.”
In addition to the program launch, TAG also released a whitepaper, ‘Winning the Fight Against Ad-Supported Piracy: Successes, Challenges and Best Practices.’ The white paper outlines best practices for companies and case studies on organisations that are effectively addressing the issue – these include taking responsibility and communicating your commitment, choosing the right partners, employing the right tools, working closely with partners to develop and execute your strategy, and holding partners accountable.
