today announced that the Media Rating Council (MRC) has accredited Oracle’s Contextual Intelligence for Property-Level Ad Verification under the MRC and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Guidelines for the Conduct of Ad Verification.
Developed via technology from its Grapeshot acquisition, Contextual Intelligence’s accredited database offers property-level categorization and can be used by marketers and agencies to avoid unsafe and brand inappropriate content, based not simply on keywords but also on the context in which they appear. To earn its MRC accreditation, Oracle Data Cloud completed a comprehensive audit and review of its technologies, systems and processes to ensure they met the Ad Verification Guideline’s requirements, as well as MRC’s rigorous standards.
“Contextual Intelligence gives marketers peace of mind by using advanced technology to help prevent their ads from appearing on properties with dangerous or inappropriate content,” said Kurt Kratchman, Group Vice President for Product Development, Oracle Data Cloud. “This MRC accreditation demonstrates the significant steps taken by the Oracle Data Cloud team to provide marketers and advertisers with the insight they need around their ad campaigns to help ensure their brands are protected and their resources are well invested.”
In 2012, the IAB and MRC produced their Ad Verification Guidelines, which identified a common set of methods and practices for conducting digital ad verification services for: Site Context, Geo-Targeting, Ad Placement, Competitive Separation and Fraud Detection. With the rise in the sophistication of market needs for standards around content detection and brand safety, particularly around new formats like video, mobile and user-generated content, the MRC published a Supplemental Guideline in September 2018 to create specific requirements for accreditation for more discrete content-level brand safety procedures that may be employed within the existing Site Context ad verification service line. Oracle Data Cloud’s accreditation is based on the earlier Property-level Ad Verification requirements, and not the 2018 content-level brand safety updates.
“We congratulate Oracle Data Cloud for achieving the distinction of MRC accreditation of its Contextual Intelligence service, formerly Grapeshot, for its property level targeting and avoidance capabilities,” said George W. Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of the MRC. “Marketers now have available another accredited tool through which they can gain added assurances their ad investments appear on properties that are aligned with their intentions.”
Contextual Intelligence improves marketing outcomes by helping ensure ads only appear on properties with brand safe and contextually appropriate content. Using adaptive machine learning algorithms, the technology assesses relative keyword importance on pages, so advertisers can avoid negative content and keywords, as well as placing their ads in more brand relevant contexts, all without using cookies or audience profiles. The MRC accreditation for Property-Level Ad verification provides advertisers and marketers requiring this verification with a tool to support and enhance their brand safety initiatives.
