For five years, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) played the critical role of arbiter for brand safety standards. It was a fraught job in the advertising industry, and an occasional forum for brands and tech firms to work out their differences, three sources told ADWEEK.
The disbanding of GARM—due to a lack of resources to defend itself against the lawsuit by X, formerly Twitter—has left a void for an authoritative voice on the widely acceptable standards for thorny brand safety questions that will not easily be filled, sources said. Still, some elements can be improved on—like maintaining independence—as the industry finds the next iteration.
“Before GARM, no one had a common definition of anything,” said one adtech executive and former GARM member, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive industry relations. “[Every brand and agency] all had their own policy. Basically, there was no way to make decisions about what was safe and suitable.”
The WFA declined to comment beyond the statement it published last week confirming GARM’s closure.
GARM set the risk categories, the floor and provided a forum
GARM was assembled in 2019 in the wake of the Christchurch New Zealand Mosque shootings during which the killer live-streamed the attack on Facebook.
It has since defined what constituted low, medium and high-risk media placement across categories that brands might exercise caution in advertising against, like terrorism, hate speech and profanity. The organization also instituted the concept of a brand safety floor: content so explicit that no brand should advertise against it at all.
“There was value in articulating a floor,” said Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at industry watchdog Check My Ads. “That was new. There are things advertisers don’t have the appetite to be on and then there’s what shouldn’t be monetized.”
Garcia noted that the definitions of low, medium and high risk could be vague, leading to different interpretations by platforms. Still, GARM’s framework, which built on work first done by the agency trade body the 4A’s and included the input of brands and platforms, gave buyers a common language to negotiate brand safety expectations with social platforms and tech vendors.
“Agencies and brands, in their contracts for example, can refer to certain GARM definitions as a ‘source of truth’, which eliminates confusion and creates significant efficiencies,” said Ruben Schreuers, chief strategy officer at media investment analysis firm Ebiquity.