YouTube CEO To Discuss Brand Safety On Conference Call With 30 Top Advertisers (Report)

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is set to host a conference call with 30 of the video giant’s top advertiser and agency partners tomorrow to discuss ongoing brand safety concerns. The gathering will be held after a CNN report last week found that, one year after the Adpocalypse, ads are still running against videos promoting Nazism, pedophilia, and conspiracy theories.

The call was scheduled weeks before this latest round of revelations, Digiday notes in its ‘Video Briefing’ newsletter, and was initially supposed to serve as a deeper dive into what the company will be presenting at its annual Brandcast event during the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Digital Content NewFronts next week. Given recent developments, however, the purpose of the call has shifted.

YouTube has taken great pains to win back advertisers after the Adpocalypse kicked off last year. Coincidentally, consumer goods giant P&G returned to the platform after a 13-month boycott on the very day that the latest wave of concerns emerged. AT&T

and Johnson & Johnson also temporarily pulled their ads from YouTube, Digiday notes, though returned to the site after YouTube pledged additional safeguards.

Last year, for instance, YouTube gave marketers more control over where their ads would appear, and also began using AI to block extremist videos. In January, the company also tightened entry to its Partner Program and vowed that every video in its Google Preferred ad tier would be manually reviewed. In its first-ever YouTube Community Guidelines Enforcement Report released earlier this week, the company said it deleted 8.3 million objectionable videos last quarter and had completed its hiring contribution with respect to Google’s stated goal of having 10,000 staffers working to ensure brand safety on YouTube by the end of the year.