Content Controversies: Should Advertisers Buy Eyeballs and Look the Other Way?

The media world fuels these divisions Some hate some love the BBC often for the exact same reasons To some Fox News is a destroyer of all that39s decent to others it39s a fearless speaker of truth Your favorite newspaper columnist or radio talk show host may to you appear as a beacon of light challenging the status quo but to others he or she is a bigoted idiotThis last week alone we have had numerous examples of conflicting opinions Coverage of the Prince Harry Meghan Markle interview the UK exeditor turned broadcaster Piers Morganamp8217s views expressed on a mainstream TV show and comment from the Society of Editors quotThe UK press is not racist or bigotedquot versus the opposite view expressed by a raft of ahem editors and journalists who make up their membershipThe media world is either quotbiasedquot or reflects the true debate taking place in many countriesAs ad people should we care that some of our TV stations radio broadcasters newspapers and websites are becoming so polarized Should we mind if news is manipulated with clearly fake stories being created to promote a particular interest or point of view Does it matter that the social media platforms continue to provide an outlet for extremist views and conspiracy theorists under the inviolate cover of free speechOr does the creation of a large audience justify anythingAnd while there are clearly societal issues in play what does the ad world have to contribute to this debate if anythingAs media guys we do it often appears care about these things only through the lens of audience dataYou would be forgiven if you concluded that the only metric that matters is the ratings Piers Morgan storms out of an ITV studio having been criticized onair for his views but the next day he39s on Twitter boasting that his quotwork is donequot as for the first time his show Good Morning Britain beat its BBC rival in the ratingsTV buyers justify their placement of client messages on this size metric They won39t think too hard that an editorial context of confrontation and belligerence might have an adverse effect on the public39s perception of their clients39 brandsAnd maybe they39re right After all that word quotmightquot is doing an awful lot of work in that sentenceThis is what happens in a world driven by the single dimension of size where the aim is to buy the biggest thing for the least money And what if the biggest thing is toxic damages the environment drives people into poverty and ferments violenceAt a personal level of course we care but professionally do we really We buy eyeballs what the owners of those eyeballs think or do is apparently of little concernMedia placement is more nuanced than that On the one hand it is an agency39s role to consider all options in the round not just on the basis of the biggest audience Context matters But on the other advertisers have historically felt nervous about doing anything that could smack of interference in the editorial processIf there is virtually no editorial process as with the platforms then that dynamic shifts Hence advertisers39 willingness to enter the contextual debate under the banner of brand safetyIt may be that I loathe and detest The Daily Mail actually there39s no quotmayquot about it but at the same time I can recognize the undoubted fact that The Mail attracts a sizeable and in many cases appropriate audience for my clients39 brandsBoth points of view can coexist indeed they have done so for yearsMany audience measurement initiatives from the WFA ISBA and the ANA on crossmedia through to the efforts of the attentionmeasurers like Amplified Intelligence and Lumen are seeking to add nuance to the crude audience size metricAs sections of the media polarize the ability to recognize nuance to consider the relevance of different attitudes and points of view becomes ever more importantShould advertisers have a view on a channel39s suitability for its messaging based not just around audience numbers but taking into account that channel39s editorial policy Should advertisers pay any attention to organizations like Stop Funding HateIs the purity of editorial freedom unencumbered by commercial concerns worth preserving or should advertisers allow their decisions to be influenced by particular vocal interestsOr should we revert to a simpler world in which we buy eyeballs and look the other wayThis is an overdue debate worth havingClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160amp160

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Content Controversies: Should Advertisers Buy Eyeballs and Look the Other Way?

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Brian Jacobs

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Content Controversies: Should Advertisers Buy Eyeballs and Look the Other Way?

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