Internet advertising pitfalls for orthodox branding

Niall Hogan, managing director of Integral Ad Science (IAS) in Southeast Asia, illustrated that Internet advertising could backfire any firms by giving examples of a tourism management firm’s voyage tour promotion programme being placed right next to an article featuring a vessel capsizing in heavy seas, stirring up unnecessary concerns among the firm’s potential customers.

The “double-edged sword” named online advertising caused major distress among orthodox businesses

Another example Hogan provided was a press release featuring the promotion details of a car manufacturer’s car tires being positioned right next to a YouTube video showing a car accident.

Additionally, a team of experts at IAS recently revealed the appalling statistics of 113 brands were frequently positioned in 50 large illegal Internet sites in Vietnam which advertise explicit content, like pornography and prohibited online gambling programmes.

Specifically, over the span of December 2017, a multitude of advertisements belonging to familiar brands in Vietnam like Thaco, Viettel, Vietjet Air, Mobile World, Pond’s, Nestlé, Abbott, Mars, Cadbury, Adidas, Deutsche Bank, and Hewlett-Packard were reported to uncontrollably and consistently appear on websites featuring candid content on paedophilia and abusive language.

Le Quang Tu Do, deputy head of the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, the Ministry of Information and Communication, suggested that Youtube channels should categorise their content into two separate groups, “explicit” and “non-explicit" in order to tighten the firms' control over their advertised content.

To date, the two Internet giants of Google and Facebook took over a hefty proportion of the Vietnamese market. Statistically, in the year 2017 alone, the two groups acquired over 80 per cent of the Internet advertising platforms, such as web-based newspaper and social networking sites.