How can brands keep up with trends if their brand safety is stuck in the past?

The internet has, for a long time now, been where cutting edge trends – and cultures that evolve around them – are incubated and spread. While back in the 90s, this happened more slowly across disparate forums, as social media platforms have become more available and made us more connected, trends today spread like wildfire; creating new audiences, behaviours and slang.  For brands, keeping up with what's hot and what’s not can be the key to reaching younger audiences. Last summer, for example, saw every social feed and publication swamped by the cultural behemoth that was Barbie and brands were able to jump on the trend to cut through to audiences – from Pintrest’s Barbie boards to Tangle Teaser’s influencer-heavy Barbie campaign. This year “Brat Summer”, coined by singer Charlie XCX, has been trending in Google and Urban Dictionary searches, with brands leaning into its popularity, as seen by Kate Spade showcasing a “Brat Summer Starter Pack” on TikTok. While Barbie is a brand-led example and “Brat Summer” is a celebrity-led one, social platforms are also now where consumer-led, generational trends evolve, eventually feeding into the mainstream.

We might not currently be seeing premium publishers using words like “rizz” “sigma” or “skibidi” in articles other than those exploring the younger generations’ new terminology. But, as Gen Z flex their spending power, estimated to be over $450 billion globally, and the upcoming Gen Alpha start to standout as consumers in their own right – with an expected global economic footprint of $5.46tn (£4.32tn) by 2029 – the cultural semantics, evolving from social media, that impact them will need to be taken into account sooner rather than later.  

Out of the loop

Being able to rapidly pivot messaging and creative to jump onto the latest trend is one thing. But all efforts go to waste if brands’ ad campaigns don’t actually reach their target audience of outdated and imprecise keyword blocklists. On the whole, marketers are still deploying legacy brand safety tools that are unable to keep up with the latest fast moving trends and potential threats in online environments.

For an industry that is constantly looking toward The Next Big Thing, the reliance on keyword blocklists as a brand safety and suitability solution is head scratching. In today's fast-moving, context-rich and video-first online environments, these tools simply do not cut it. Not only that, but marketers often employ a ‘set up and sit back’ approach to these solutions, rarely updating them as events, trends and new slang words unfold across the web.

Every generation uses its own slang. Speaking to my 10-year-old (who now calls me “bruh”) can sometimes feel like speaking another language due to the phrases they’ve picked up from friends or the internet. These words shift and change meaning constantly, but they will likely become recognisable and used among a more mainstream audience. And brands must keep up with this if they are to keep reaching Gen Z and eventually younger demographics. There is no point crafting a perfectly calibrated campaign if your outdated blocklist cuts you off from reaching your target audience; as Gen Alpha might say, this is “skibidi ohio” (not good at all).

Take, for example, the colloquialisms that Gen Z often use online – words like ‘slay’, ‘lit, or ‘slaps’. All of these, in their traditional meaning, could find themselves on the blocklist of an over cautious brand. But to younger generations, these are all highly positive (trust me, I’ve Googled them) and could be appropriate to advertise against.

This is a problem not just for advertisers, but the whole ecosystem. It cuts off publishers from much needed revenue, stops brands being placed in premium locations, and gives customers a worse on-page ad experience. So what needs to happen to stop this cheugy (“the opposite of trendy”) state of affairs?

Getting with the times

Modern problems demand modern solutions. This is one of the major issues with blocklists – they are a legacy solution built for a different era of the internet.

For an indication of how much the landscape has changed, look no further than the rise of video – specifically short form video. Its spread online has been rapid, especially thanks to platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. This has been reflected in the continuing increase in video ad budgets by brands, with spend in this area seeing a 7.8% boost in the last quarter alone amongst UK advertisers.

While advertisers are right to worry about brand safety, the lack of nuance that blocklists offer is harming their ability to reach consumers, and ultimately their ROI. It’s time that marketers embraced solutions that were as agile and fast-evolving as the internet – and language – itself.

AI-powered brand safety solutions are able to more effectively read the context and sentiment of content, whether text, still image, audio, or video. These solutions are always evolving, with the constantly updating definitions of brand safety that can be rapidly tweaked in line with unfurling events and trends. Brands using these tools can ultimately continue to have a strong defence without cutting off potential ad slots.

At the same time, these solutions are underpinned by the guidelines outlined by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). This ensures standardised definitions around brand safety issues, as well as a shared language that all players can harness.

As one trend fizzles out, another springs into life. Keeping up with exactly what the latest fads are is hard enough personally, but for brands it can be the difference between reaching your audience, or being cut off by an imprecise keyword blocklist. Marketers must embrace forward-thinking solutions that can more effectively read the nuance and connotations of content if they are to truly maximise their ad spend.