Telstra, ING Direct, Coles and Ford have pledged full investigations after their ads were found on a dodgy "click fraud" website.
AdNews revealed yesterday that a raft of blue chip brands have been appearing on an illegal site called WatchAmericanDad.tv. The site has illegally placed scores of brand videos into its ad units, which use enticing 'click here' buttons to trick people to click on video ads, causing sizeable sums to be funnelled out of the website into the coffers of those who perpetrate the scam.
The environment is not where the brand managers would wittingly advertise and those brands that responded to AdNews' requests for comment have said they were not aware their brand was in such an environment.
Telstra vowed to take part in efforts to wipe the problem out at an industry wide level. The company said in a statement:
“Telstra has put in robust measures to ensure that our advertising does not appear on inappropriate or illegal sites. This includes maintaining our ‘white list’ of appropriate sites and testing a new brand safety control tool.
“Telstra’s measures are regarded as some of the strongest in the country. However, this has not prevented our content appearing on a site in a way that we don’t endorse.
“We are investigating this further, including what action could be taken. We will also work with the industry to see what else can be done to stop this kind of thing happening.”
A spokesperson from Ford said: “Ford takes this information very seriously and will be investigating it further as a matter of priority.”
ING Direct said in a statement: “The ad was not authorised by ING Direct to appear on that site. We will be working with our media agency to further safeguard against ads appearing on inappropriate sites.”
These comments follow a statement from Coles yesterday, in which the brand said it had taken “immediate steps” to have the content removed from the site in question. A spokesperson said that click fraud was an industry wide concern.
Jonathan Despinidic, the director of media trading firm Multiscreen Media, and former vice-president of ad network industry body IASH, said yesterday that the internet is full of such websites, which are often created by offshore criminal networks specifically for the purpose of shaving advertising revenue from the budgets of big name advertisers.
While industry has attempted to crack down on the problem, it is has existed for years as rogue publishers syndicate players to sites that are not registered on an ad exchange. The platform only sees the parent site and so can avoid detection. Brand safety tools work, but are not watertight.
When sites are discovered to be rogue they are blacklisted but then the perpetrators move on. It happens more around periods of peak demand when publishers run out of inventory and look to create supply. Some try to cheat the system.
It is thought that a migration to the IAB's VPAID (digital video player ad interface definition) would help address the problem. About 20% of sites are VPAID compliant (although they represent around three quarters of inventory). The remainder use the VAST (video ad serving template) system.
Other brands which appeared on the site included Reckitt Benckiser, Hyundai, Dyson, Microsoft, Mastercard, L'Oreal, Australia Post, Kia, Singapore Airlines, Olympus, Fonterra and Schick.
AdNews has approached all brands which appeared on the site for comment.
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