Three Steps Brands Can Take to Support Editorial Integrity

Consumers expect integrity from the brands they know and love, as evidenced by a recent Harris Poll that noted 82% of consumers want a brand’s values to align with their own. So the question becomes, how does a brand go about this?

One of the most efficient and effective ways for brands to ensure this key aspect of the brand experience is by partnering with organizations that provide the public with quality information, or that work toward solving issues that people care about. Doing this allows advertisers to connect with the publishers’ dedicated and highly engaged audiences, ones that strive toward journalistic excellence and provide more complete and balanced coverage of societal issues such as sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

What are the steps that advertisers can take to support editorial integrity and ensure they find the right publishers to collaborate with? Connatix recently partnered with Adweek for the report, the “3-Minute Guide to Advertising with Integrity” which uncovers three critical steps for brands to take as they look to build reputation for editorial integrity:

1. Identify prospective partners

The first step to partnering with premium content platforms is to identify the ones that fit your brand’s needs and values, and consider whether your target audience is among the publisher’s audience. Then, gather as much information as possible about their readers to make more informed decisions about target and block lists to ensure that all media is suitable for your specific brand and campaign goals.

To do this, you can leverage an innovative technology solution like Deep Contextual from Connatix, which is our proprietary tech that allows  brands to better align with their customers’ interests. Our programmatic account management team can also help provide recommendations and optimizations, like helping brands create target and block lists that better align with their brand goals and bigger initiatives (i.e. a focus on Black owned publishers or those centered on sustainability).

2. Vet your content partners

After you identify premium content partners, you should vet prospective platforms’ editorial integrity by evaluating the credibility of their authors, sources and domain names and screen for objectionable content that doesn’t align with your brand and what you stand for. Also, it’s important to make sure you look into a publisher’s business ethics by investigating an organization’s respect for intellectual property, instances of fraud, and any affiliations with dangerous individuals and organizations.

3. Create a strong collaboration

Brands should take the initiative to put campaigns in place that support the publishers with whom you’d like to partner. Your ad spend can provide a benefit for all. These publishers have fostered dedicated communities of audiences who trust, benefit from and rely on their content. So, when a brand comes in with a highly targeted ad campaign, it also provides the opportunity for a publisher to build a more personal relationship with their readers. 

Editorial integrity shouldn’t be optional, but a requirement for successful brand and publisher partnerships. Download the “3-Minute Guide to Advertising with Integrity” report to learn more about integrity and how to ensure your brand is on the right path to supporting editorial integrity.