Barometer and Oxford Road Introduce World's Preeminent AI-Powered Brand Safety and Suitability Solution for Podcasts at SXSW

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., March 9, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Barometer, an AI company that empowers teams to extract data-driven insights from their content and Oxford Road, the leading independent advertising agency for audio, today announced the launch of a new and powerful AI-powered brand suitability solution that makes it easy for marketers to assess the risk profiles of podcasts in alignment with their brand values and inform their advertising choices.

Powered by natural language processing, and built for the needs of media buyers, Barometer and Oxford Road's first-of-its-kind solution is informed by the Global Advertisers for Responsible Media's (GARM) Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework. This includes assigning risk profiles for shows and specific Podcast episodes of categories including Adult & Explicit Sexual Content, Obscenity & Profanity and Debated Sensitive Social Issues.

Additionally, the solution also monitors positive media behaviors, including values from Oxford Road's Media Roundtable initiative, such as Tolerance, where advertisers can see ratings for a program's efforts to support collaboration between parties with conflicting objectives and views.

"We are committed to providing a transparent and independent third party offering," said Tamara Zubatiy, founder and CEO of Barometer, "The agencies and brands we serve require a solution to support diverse needs and brand values because what's ideal for one brand is a risk for another." She continues, " Ultimately, the content insights our solution delivers help brands inform their ad choices in much the same way that consumers count on nutrition labels to guide their food choices."

In addition to her role leading Barometer, Zubatiy is also a member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Technology Laboratory, working to forward technology standards to support responsible scaling across the industry.

"The solution we developed with Barometer was driven by the needs of buyers and is not funded by publishers or driven by political ideology. For the industry to achieve a sustainable solution, impartiality is critical," said Dan Granger, founder, and CEO of Oxford Road. "We are the first to market with a true AI solution that takes into account context & sentiment, which will benefit not only buyers but also publishers. Finally, networks and platforms can have greater visibility into the content they are distributing or plan to distribute, and offer a layer of protection from trusted third-party standards to their customers. For platforms tasked with monetizing the long tail of smaller programs, this now provides a viable path forward to bring sponsors to the thousands of shows that wouldn't get the attention needed to adequately vet for safety and suitability using human-driven or keyword-based solutions."

Unlike existing keyword-based solutions, Barometer intelligently analyzes entire transcripts in context, interprets each utterance, and assigns a concrete risk score based on each GARM component. The data-driven content rating capability is then used to measure content-in-context across 11 content topics that may be harmful to brands. This new level of topic-modeling-based analysis references knowledge graphs the company has been building for years. The solution melds data from external sources into one intelligent contextualization algorithm for fair and meaningful podcast content rating.

The Barometer dashboard experience makes it easy for agencies, brands, and networks to see exactly what they need to quickly evaluate podcast content at a very granular level and then instantly filter podcast shows and episodes that do not align with their brand values and safety requirements. Networks also benefit from the Barometer, as it can programmatically plug into any internal platforms and systems via API.

"As media fragmentation drove a renaissance in new forms of content that consumers love, serious risks emerged as well — making it harder than ever for advertisers seeking to balance their brand values with their business objectives. With so little oversight of content, particularly in the podcast ecosystem, this led many brands to avoid particular genres and in some cases, podcasts altogether, a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater," said Granger. "The right way of tackling these major challenges is nuanced and technology-based. It does not require publishers to bluntly de-platform controversial voices without the insights needed to guide their choices. It instead provides the unbiased information everyone deserves to have about the content they are consuming, sponsoring, or distributing. In short, it gives brands the information needed to reduce risks and drive the results audio can offer."

Addressing the challenges the direct use of AI poses, Zubatiy emphasized "Our expert team brings a data-critical approach to AI bias through model transparency and ongoing model revalidation. Our goal is to become an IAB standard by year's end."

Barometer and Oxford Road's new brand safety and suitability solution for podcasts will be unveiled at SXSW on March 14t at Audio House, a private event that will bring. brands, agencies, publishers, and content creators together for a series of discussions about the opportunities and challenges inherent to audio. Topics discussed at AudioHouse will range from how responsible media practices and solutions can help drive brand safety and suitability to how to increase trust in the burgeoning podcast industry as it continues to evolve.

To learn more about Barometer and Oxford Road's new brand safety and suitability solution, please contact [email protected].

About Barometer
Barometer uses natural language processing to create risk profiles for podcasts based on the Global Advertisers for Responsible Media's (GARM) Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework and Media roundtable values. The tool makes it easy for audio advertisers to plan values-driven ad buys, supports transparency in the space, and empowers context-based advertising. http://www.thebarometer.co

About Oxford Road
Oxford Road is the leading privately owned audio ad agency. Pairing disruptive brands with powerful media outlets, Oxford Road develops and places ads for leading B2B and B2C companies across multiple channels including podcast, radio, and television, reaching millions of people each day. Since its founding, Oxford Road has served thousands of top brands and helped more than a dozen direct to consumer brands to scale their customer acquisition efforts and to evolve from startup leaders into leaders with $1 Billion+ valuations. http://www.oxfordroad.com

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Media Contact:
Lana McGilvray
Founder and CEO
Purpose Worldwide
512.970.8310
@purpose_ww
@lanamcgilvray

Media Contact

Tamara Zubatiy, Barometer, +1 858-692-3192, [email protected]

Lana McGilvray, Purpose Worldwide, 512.970.8310, [email protected]

SOURCE Barometer