Brand safety in a physical environment
Brand safety in digital media is largely about the content an ad appears beside and the sites it appears on. In a physical store, the equivalent concerns are the environment the screen sits in, what plays immediately before and after, and the store itself.
The concepts transfer; the mechanisms do not.
What is the environment risk?
That the store itself is not somewhere a brand wishes to be seen. That is a store-selection question, and in a network of independent operators the estate varies more than a chain's would.
A brand with specific requirements should ask what selection is possible and what standards the network applies to the stores it recruits. A network that cannot describe its recruitment standard is describing an estate it has not characterised.
What is the adjacency risk?
What plays immediately before and after in the loop. A brand can appear next to a category it would not wish to be associated with, and unlike digital there is no real-time exclusion.
Ask about category separation policy. Many networks offer some control, and knowing the policy before the buy is better than discovering an adjacency during it.
What about the physical surroundings?
A screen sits among the store's own signage, products and condition. An execution playing beside a tired fixture or above a category the brand avoids is in an adjacency it did not buy.
This is the aspect of physical brand safety with no digital equivalent, and it is assessed by looking. Photographs from a sample of stores are the practical evidence.
Can a brand exclude stores?
Usually, on defined criteria, and the criteria should be stated rather than left to judgment. Exclusion on category — stores selling something the brand will not sit beside — is the common case.
Exclusion on subjective grounds is harder to administer and harder to defend, which is a reason to define it concretely.
What about the store's own conduct?
A network is selling access to premises it does not control. A store that behaves in a way a brand objects to is a risk with no technical mitigation, only a relationship and a removal process.
Ask what the removal process is and how quickly it operates.
A short written note of the criteria, agreed before the buy, is what makes an exclusion request straightforward rather than a negotiation. It also gives the network something specific to check against when a store is added mid-flight.
How does this differ from digital brand safety?
There is no blocklist, no real-time bidding decision and no content classification. The controls are store selection, category policy and physical inspection, all of which operate before flight rather than during it.
That makes pre-buy diligence more important here than in a channel with runtime controls.
What should be agreed in advance?
Store selection criteria, category separation policy, the exclusion mechanism and the removal process. Four items, and they constitute brand safety in this medium.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a store list before buying?
Ask for it. A network unwilling to disclose which stores a campaign will run in is asking a brand to accept an environment it cannot assess.
What category separation is typical?
Practices vary from none to full exclusivity for a period. It is a commercial term rather than a standard, and it should be in the plan.
Can I exclude individual stores?
Usually, and the mechanism should be defined. Exclusions requested after flight has begun are harder to execute and may not be immediate.
How do I assess the physical environment?
Photographs from a sample of stores on a defined protocol, ideally before the buy. It is the only direct evidence available.
What about the store's other advertising?
A store carries its own signage and other suppliers' material, and a brand cannot control it. Knowing that in advance is more useful than being surprised by a photograph later.
Is there an industry standard?
Digital brand safety standards do not map onto a physical environment, and the useful frameworks are contractual rather than technical. Industry standards work is discussed by bodies such as the IAB.
How quickly can content be pulled?
In a networked screen system, quickly, which is one of the medium's advantages over printed material. Confirm the mechanism and the timeframe.
Does this differ from out-of-home generally?
Roadside formats have adjacency concerns about location rather than about a retail environment. Practice in out-of-home is discussed by bodies such as OAAA.
What is the single most useful step?
See the stores, through photographs at minimum. Everything else in this area follows from knowing what the environment actually is.
### How should the environment be monitored during a flight?
Through the same photographic evidence used to verify placement, sampled across the estate. A store's condition and its adjacent content change, and a pre-buy assessment describes a moment.
Where a field team visits, the observation costs nothing extra. Where it does not, a sample from the network is the practical alternative.
What should happen if a store turns out to be unsuitable?
It should be excluded, with a defined mechanism and timeframe. The ability to remove a store quickly is one of the advantages of a networked system and it should be in the contract rather than assumed.
### What should the contract cover?
Store selection criteria, category separation, the exclusion mechanism, the removal timeframe and who decides a disputed case. Five items, and they constitute the workable version of brand safety in a physical medium.
None of them are exotic and their absence leaves the position resting on goodwill, which is adequate until the first disagreement.
Can a brand audit the environment itself?
Through its own field team where one exists, or through a sample of photographs. Both are legitimate and neither is usually arranged.
Does the store's category mix matter?
It can, where a brand will not sit alongside particular products. That is a store selection criterion and it should be stated before the buy rather than raised afterwards.
Considering NRS Digital Media? Start at nrsdigitalmedia.com, read the media deck, or contact the team.