Google’s Woes and the Perils of “Automated Wonderfulness”

In case you missed all the excitement hereamp8217s a summary Ads for wellknown brands including Marks and Spencer The Guardian Channel 4 and Land Rover have been among those inappropriately placed The brands immediately pulled their budgets off YouTube Politicians yelped news media who canamp8217t hide their delight at whatamp8217s happening covered the story Google apologized interestingly for the adsamp8217 placements not for the videos themselves being there analysts downgraded Google stock and on we goGoogle is clearly at fault and as any media owner should do has taken responsibility for these eventsThere are though various rumblings around the central story which are interestingFirst up the role of the news media For months those of us sitting on the periphery have longed for someone in the news media to fight back Their expensively produced content is being exploited at virtually zero return in the dubious name of amp8220reachamp8221 As a result serious journalism is coming close to being driven to extinction by the giant platforms Something had to be doneNext and this might be a function of where I am sitting this does seem to have started as a strangely UKcentric story amp160Google and YouTube are of course global businesses so how come this is only now being seen as a big deal in the US let alone elsewhere How come the Google EMEA boss is taking all the flakFinally what of the agencies If they were as good as they claim technologically shouldnamp8217t they have seen at least the possibility of this coming After all these vile videos have been around on YouTube for years they have even been used in news reports Their existence is hardly a secretI appreciate that Googleamp8217s algorithms keep changing but shouldnamp8217t the agencies have insisted that whatever the changes there is no way these things should be supported by their clientsamp8217 ads Brand safety initiatives are a good thing but presumably only as good as the access their creators are given to the platforms in the first place Maybe the push for more openness should go beyond the field of measurementBrand safety apart next time you read of this or that agency amp8220investing millionsamp8221 in cutting edge technology to allow them to stay ahead you might ask yourself what went wrong this timeMore positively and taking the bigger picture thereamp8217s the subtle but significant change in the words the agencies have chosen in discussing this amp160Of course any thinking person in any agency or advertiser condemns the fact that these misplacements can happen but even in such an extreme case the agencies are right not to play the big amp8220I amamp8221 by unilaterally actingamp160 Agencies have been accused of occasionally forgetting that theyamp8217re there to act on behalf of their clients Referencing even indirectly agencywide deals undermines this fundamental roleLet39s hope the traders get the memo Thereamp8217s more to media placement than an agencywide trade involving money and impressionsAnother lesson is the importance of context amp160Whatamp8217s happened on YouTube is a very extreme example and no doubt some programmatic guy somewhere will pop up and say that far and away the majority of placements are fine but thatamp8217s not really good enoughBut when programmatic placement goes wrong it can cause a great deal of reputational damage These YouTube cases may be extreme but theyamp8217re not by any means the only incidents of automation leading to inappropriate placements amp160Private Eye runs a regular feature Malgorithms with hilarious and sometimes notsohilarious examples of ads appearing in quite the wrong placeSmart proponents of a programmatic future know thereamp8217s still work to be done Right now automating online placements leads to a commoditization of media focused on the most basic metrics and ignoring the light and shade delivered by contextYes programmatic can and will bring benefits but we would be wise never to forget the human skills involved in ensuring the most effective use of media channelsamp160 Those selling programmatictomorrowifnotsooner solutions would do well to keep a sense of perspective and spare us their extravagant and overblown claims of a future dominated by general automated wonderfulnessClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggersamp160amp160

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Google’s Woes and the Perils of “Automated Wonderfulness”

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Brian Jacobs

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