News publishers are likely to have missed out on digital advertising revenue from the Olympics due to outdated keyword “blocklists” that have included the word “Paris” since terror attacks in the city nine years ago. According to the team at Reach’s publisher contextual ad solution Mantis , just 43% of Olympics content between the start of the games until 13 August for publishers not using their platform was classified as “brand safe”. Mantis came up with this figure after comparing published online work with known blocklists used by the advertising industry.
Mantis said 92% of Olympics content for publishers using its platform was classified as brand safe. As well as Reach. Mantis is also used by Radio Times owner Immediate Media.
The remaining 8% not classed as brand safe included stories about the Dutch volleyball player convicted of child rape. Blocklisting, a word created by combining blocking and blacklist, is when brands and advertising agencies use keywords like “attack” and “shooting” to stop their campaigns appearing alongside any content that contains them. This means, for example, that football content can lose potential advertising when what brands really wanted to avoid was having their campaigns alongside hard news stories that create negative emotions in readers.
Reach created Mantis in 2019 as its own attempt to tackle the issue. Fiona Salmon, managing director at Mantis , said: “The increase in brand safe inventory during the Olympics.