Online Advertising: Risk to Brands?

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on potential risks to brands from online ad networks. Seems big brands like Verizon, Disney and Monster.com found their brands juxtapositioned with questionable content on sites like MySpace.com and About.com.

Though the companies pulled their ads, it was an eye-opener for advertisers, site publishers and ad networks alike ... and the beginning of what promises to be a lengthy debate on solutions.

While companies want the exposure offered by popular online sites, they want to protect their brand's integrity even more. This becomes increasingly more difficult when purchasing through food-chain-esque ad networks, where large networks often purchase ad space from multiple smaller firms.

Though not entirely unexpected with the rapid-fire growth of online advertising (the article notes that the industry grew 30 percent in 2005), it presents a highly-publicized challenge in continuing those gains.

It also presents a keen, though complex, opportunity for organiziations that develop technologies to happily marry ad and content placement while maximizing the user experience.