APAC brand safety issues on the rise with 55% more incidents

Brand safety incident rates in Asia Pacific countries ranged from 3.8% to 25% by country, a far more significant variance compared to other regions. According to DoubleVerify’s recent Global Insights Report, the region saw a 55% increase in brand safety incident rates this year. Singapore had the second highest brand safety incident rates (5.6%). Australia ranked the highest at 10.4% while India came in third at 3.8%. Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region had 51% authentic viewable impressions for display and 60% for video. On a global level, brand safety issues on mobile apps persist, with the platform seeing a 194% increase in incident rates over the last 12 months, despite mobile apps driving performance. According to the report, the increase is part of a growing trend, as content consumption and ad spend on mobile apps increase in tandem.Brand safety incidents, according to the report, were highest in the entertainment category followed by travel. This is because brands in these industries have “bursts” of high volume and run many custom and takeover buys without extended time to optimise campaigns.Travel clients are also especially sensitive to natural and man-made disaster news, further increasing the likelihood of avoidance.DoubleVerify said that avoidance categories offer the foundation for brand safety, allowing brands to define entire content areas such as adult content or terrorism, against which they don’t want to serve ads. Keyword lists as well as white and block lists also offer an added layer of protection.In the meantime, while fraud rates remained level year-on-year, dropping 0.4% to 3.1% this year, fraud rates on mobile apps grew by 6%. In terms of emerging media, the report noted a 120% increase in fraudulent click through views (CTV) and mobile apps in the last twelve months.Majority (54%) of fraud seen on mobile apps is classified as app fraud, which represents ad impression fraud or invalid traffic practices such as misrepresentation, laundering and hidden ads. DoubleVerify expects fraud rates for mobile apps and CTV to rise, especially in CTV, as fraudsters target the premium, high-growth environment. Fraud was highest in media, travel, finance, pharmaceuticals and auto industries.Meanwhile, overall viewability globally also increased slightly on display (58%) and video (62%), led by mobile apps which topped 70% in both formats. However, DoubleVerify said this still falls short of IAB standards and marketers’ growing demand for 100% viewability.(Photo courtesy: 123RF)