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Business Insider
06-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A conservative crackdown on advertisers has forced a 'brand safety' reset
Conservative media company The Daily Wire is celebrating the downfall of " brand safety," and benefiting from the new state of play in the ad business during the second Trump era. Last week, The Daily Wire's commercial team received a request for proposal, or RFP, from Omnicom, one of the world's biggest ad agency groups. An RFP typically indicates an agency or advertiser's interest in buying ad space. The RFP was a huge win for The Daily Wire. It was only the second time it had received an inbound ad request from Omnicom. The first was in May, but the latest was a much bigger buy. Last year, The Daily Wire's famous cofounder and podcaster, Ben Shapiro, testified that the site had been unfairly shunned by major advertisers and ad agencies who, he said, had deemed its content unsafe for their brands. "Brand safety was being defined by people with a severe bias against a certain point of view," The Daily Wire's editor in chief, Brent Scher, told Business Insider in an interview. But since President Donald Trump's return to the White House, the power dynamics around "brand safety" — the practice of brands seeking to avoid their ads appearing next to, or otherwise supporting, "unsafe" content — have shifted, with some advertisers scrambling to avoid any whiff of anti-conservative bias. The situation is particularly acute for Omnicom, making its outreach to The Daily Wire both unprecedented and unsurprising. Last month, Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Republican-led Federal Trade Commission, gave conditional approval to a proposed $13.5 billion merger of Omnicom and fellow ad company IPG, which would create the world's largest ad agency. It had an unusual caveat: Omnicom agreed to a consent order that would prevent it from colluding with other companies to encourage its advertiser clients to boycott media based on publishers' "political or ideological viewpoints." 'Brand suitability' versus 'brand safety' The FTC's move is the latest victory in the battle against brand safety waged by US conservatives. Brand safety in 2025 has become such a political flash point that some ad execs are changing the way they talk about the topic. "I hear the phrase 'brand suitability' far more than 'brand safety' now," said Liam Brennan, a marketing consultant and former ad agency director. "It makes it sound like a cop out, but it's a shift in the approach brands are taking. Before it was 'block, block, block,' now it's more about where my brand should be appearing. It's a more positive approach." While the Trump administration's actions have turned up the heat on brand safety practices, a broader backlash has been building for some time. Brand safety began as a seemingly innocuous practice of preventing brands from appearing next to the worst of the internet, such as violence, pornography, and illegal content. But it gradually expanded, with brands seeking to avoid a wide variety of political issues, or platforms that supported them. In investigations and lawsuits, lawmakers and other high-profile conservatives have argued that ad practitioners, brand safety tech vendors, and industry groups forced the brand safety pendulum to swing too far into partisan areas, unfairly depriving right-leaning outlets of ad dollars. Media companies on the left have said they, too, have been harmed by advertisers who deemed news sites as unsafe for brands. "What may have started as a good idea expanded, and then became too broad," said Mark Penn, CEO of the advertising holding company Stagwell. "Consequentially, it wasn't really about brand safety — it became almost brand censorship." The emergence of brand safety The practice of brand safety arose as advertisers shifted from analog media buying — placing deals directly with the TV stations, billboard owners, or newspaper proprietors they wished to buy space with — toward digital. Using technology, advertisers could target their audiences across swaths of websites, social platforms, and apps with just a few clicks. However, this meant they had less visibility about the content their ads were likely to appear next to. Brand safety technology was created to give advertisers more control over the types of content they wanted to fund or avoid. Keyword block lists were an early but somewhat blunt tool, helping advertisers avoid appearing in articles about grisly news topics like murders or natural disasters. However, marketers often didn't maintain good block list hygiene. Mike Zaneis, CEO of ad industry accreditation organization the Trustworthy Accountability Group, said he was recently reviewing brand block lists that still had the term "Ariana Grande" on them, years after the deadly terrorist attack that took place at the pop star's Manchester Arena, UK, concert in 2017. "Never mind that she's won two Grammys since then," Zaneis said. Enter: The conservative backlash The scrutiny on brand safety notably dialed up in 2024 and took on a partisan tone. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, released an investigation that accused advertisers of illegally colluding to withhold ad dollars from conservative-leaning media like The Daily Wire, X (after Elon Musk's takeover of the company), and "The Joe Rogan Experience." The report took aim at an initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which developed brand safety frameworks and common definitions that advertisers and Big Tech platforms like Meta and YouTube could universally adopt. Elon Musk's X then sued several major brands, including Mars and CVS Health, alleging their participation in GARM involved a conspiracy to withhold ad dollars from the platform formerly known as Twitter. The conservative video platform Rumble also sued GARM and some of its members, making similar claims in its suit. GARM shut down shortly after X's suit was filed. Its parent organization, the World Federation of Advertisers, denied wrongdoing but said GARM didn't have the resources to fight the legal action. In a May legal filing seeking to dismiss the X case, the defendants said the lawsuit was an attempt to use the courts win back business X had "lost in the free market when it disrupted its own business and alienated many of its customers." In a statement, the WFA said GARM provided tools to help advertisers better exercise their freedom to choose where to place their ads in the best interests of their brands, and that it was always voluntary and pro-competitive. "WFA will continue to fight these allegations, and we are confident that the US judicial system will find in our favor," the statement said. While GARM is no more, the lawsuits and the Judiciary Committee's investigation continue, and the FTC has joined the brand safety battle under the Trump administration. Ferguson, the FTC chair, has said that maintaining a free ad market and free speech is a top priority and that he hopes other ad companies will adopt policies similar to those in the Omnicom-IPG consent decree. That notice extends to other advertising vendors in the brand safety sphere. In May, the FTC sent sweeping civil investigative demands to media watchdogs and rating firms, including Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media, seeking information about their brand safety practices. In one such letter, viewed by BI, the FTC sought documents related to relationships with GARM, the publicly traded ad verification firms Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify, and other entities that track and characterize "misinformation," "hate speech," "false" or "deceptive" content, and other similar categories. While the FTC's actions have made many in the ad industry nervous, some execs consider much of brand safety to be, as Stagwell's Penn puts it, a "fabricated issue." Penn said there were only limited situations in which brands might really be negatively affected by where their ads appeared. "From the polling I've done, conservatives think that they were being censored and demonetized, and liberals think they were being censored, so nobody was particularly happy about what was going on," Penn said. (Stagwell owns the public opinion and advisory firm The Harris Poll.) Will the brand safety crackdown benefit news publishers? Execs at The Daily Wire say the scrutiny on brand safety was warranted and has gotten results. "My team is inside of the bigger agencies, having discussions, whereas the door was automatically shut 12 to 16 months ago," said The Daily Wire's SVP of ad revenue, Christine Hoffmann. "We're getting business from Fortune 500 companies, like Chevron, like Amazon, like Paramount, and that was business that was nonexistent to us." Other conservative news outlets, including Fox News and The National Review, have also noticed a bump in advertising interest since Trump took office for the second time. Ad industry insiders previously told BI this reflected advertisers' realization that half of the country voted for Trump, but that it could also be a signal of advertisers hedging against political risk. The notion that the crackdown on brand safety will provide a long-term bump to news publishers is untested and, for many industry insiders, feels unlikely. An executive from the media buying giant GroupM testified in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year that just 1.28% of its clients' global ad budgets went toward news outlets. Meanwhile, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon — with their superior scale and adtech — are set to take in more than half of global ad spending outside China this year, according to the latest forecast from the World Advertising Research Center. Omnicom has agreed to be audited to demonstrate its compliance with the FTC's proposed consent decree, which also includes an agreement not to create block lists, unless requested to do so by clients. The FTC's provisional agreement says Omnicom-IPG can't collude with other firms to steer client ad spend based on political ideologies, which might cause some advertisers to simply opt to avoid news altogether. As BI previously reported, some ad industry insiders and analysts think the government's crackdown on brand safety is an overreach that will hurt publishers of all kinds while further consolidating power with the tech giants. New tools could help brands avoid the censorship label, but there's no room for GARM 2.0 Some in the ad industry tell BI they're hopeful that brand safety could enter an apolitical era, powered by tech rather than individual decisions over blunt filters. "My view is that AI will bring greater nuance to brand safety — making it more effective for buyers and less restrictive for sellers," said David Kohl, cofounder of the performance marketing firm Symitri. Kohl said startups like Mobian are building models that assess context, user sentiment, and real-time ad performance to identify which media environments deliver and which don't. Elsewhere, Stagwell is creating what Penn describes as a politically neutral news marketplace, in partnership with the adtech company The Trade Desk, enabling advertisers to buy multiple news sites at once, according to demographics. While brand safety might become more tech-enabled, it seems unlikely there will be a GARM 2.0 for some time yet. "It would be far too easy to become a target," said Lisa Macpherson, a former marketing executive who now serves as the policy director of Public Knowledge, a tech policy consumer advocacy group. Just ask the advertising agency group Dentsu. Late last year, Dentsu quickly exited its involvement with the creation of a new coalition that had intended to encourage ad investments in "credible" news. Days after the press release about the coalition was published, the House Judiciary Committee requested documents from the ad firm, having noticed similarities to GARM. In response, Dentsu said it had decided "not to pursue the initiative" nor "pursue any other effort with similar aims." Macpherson said advertisers would continue to do what's necessary to protect their investments in their brands. Yet, as the threat of lawsuits and document demands related to GARM rumbles on, people in the ad industry will likely avoid using the phrase "brand safety" in emails or marketing materials. "They may describe it differently," Macpherson said. "They will be very careful to couch it in language that evokes their constitutional right" to send ad dollars or not spend money on certain media outlets based on the suitability for their individual brands, she added. Zaneis of TAG said the recent government and legal scrutiny of brand safety practices might have been the jolt the industry needed, forcing marketers to pay closer attention to an issue that had gotten out of hand. "We may not like how we got here as an industry, but it's where we should have been all along," Zaneis said.
Axios
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Axios
MAGA erupts with Islamophobic attacks on Zohran Mamdani
MAGA influencers exploded over Zohran Mamdani's upset victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, launching a wave of racist and Islamophobic attacks against the 33-year-old democratic socialist. Why it matters: Mamdani who would be New York's first Muslim mayor if elected, is of Indian ancestry, was born in Uganda and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. He's quickly becoming a MAGA boogeyman as much for his faith and background as for his left-wing politics. Police were already investigating hate-related threats against Mamdani in the days leading up to Tuesday's election, where he was on track to defeat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani, whose has drawn criticism for his pro-Palestinian activism, has repeatedly condemned antisemitism and pledged to be a mayor for all New Yorkers. What they're saying: MAGA activists flooded social media with past statements from Mamdani on Israel, defunding the police, socialism and more, casting him as a radical who will destroy America's largest city. But many went further, fixating on his Muslim faith and immigrant background tomake the racist argument that his victory signaled something darker — a backsliding into "third world" decline. Charlie Kirk, a prominent podcaster and White House ally, posted on X: "24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City." "It's not Islamophobia to notice that Muslims want to import values into the West that seek to destabilize our civilization. It's cultural suicide to stay silent," Kirk added. The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh claimed that New York isn't "an American city anymore by any reasonable definition" because immigrants make up nearly 40% of its population," which he called "a tragedy and disgrace." Anti-Islam conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, whose views are influential in the Trump administration, baselessly predicted that Mamdani's win would lead to terrorism in New York City. Between the lines: Mamdani's biography seemed primed to trigger a MAGA movement that sees itself as a frontline fighter in a war to protect the country's Judeo-Christian foundation. Beyond promoting Trump's agenda, MAGA influencers spend much of their time sounding the alarm over multiculturalism and anti-Western values, which they portray as dark forces fueled by both legal and illegal immigration. "NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration," White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on X. The big picture: National Republicans see an opportunity to use Mamdani's victory — and his democratic socialist politics — to paint the entire Democratic Party as dangerously out of touch. Mamdani's criticisms of Israel and refusal to denounce the phrase"globalize the intifada" became flashpoints in the final weeks of the campaign, especially in a city with one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. Mamdani was emotional last week as he addressed the threats he's received during the campaign: "I get messages that say: 'The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim,'" he revealed. "I get threats on my life, on the people that I love."
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ben Shapiro Meets With Pope Leo at Vatican, Gifts Him With Memento From Home
Conservative media personality Ben Shapiro is the latest famous face to secure time with Pope Leo XIV, meeting with the new U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church at the Vatican on Wednesday. Shapiro, 41, founded the conservative news website The Daily Wire in 2015 as he rose to prominence in the world of right-wing podcasting. He expressed approval of Pope Leo XIV when he was selected as the Catholic leader in May, indicating that he believed Pope Leo would veer away from the liberal stances of his predecessor. On Wednesday, the conservative media personality, who is Jewish, posted an image of the moment on and shared what happened with his 7.8 million followers. More from The Hollywood Reporter Al Pacino Meets Pope Leo XIV, Becoming First Movie Star to Get an Audience With American Pontiff 'The Ritual' Review: Al Pacino and Dan Stevens Slum It in an Exorcism Flick That's Pure Regurgitation Jon Bernthal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach's 'Dog Day Afternoon' Headed to Broadway 'It was an honor to meet His Holiness, @Pontifex in Vatican City today, and to thank him for standing up for Biblical values in a chaotic world…and to present him with a signed 2005 White Sox World Series baseball I had in my collection (we're both fans).' Shapiro wrote on X on Wednesday. It was an honor to meet His Holiness, @Pontifex in Vatican City today, and to thank him for standing up for Biblical values in a chaotic world…and to present him with a signed 2005 White Sox World Series baseball I had in my collection (we're both fans). — Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 18, 2025 He added in a subsequent post: 'As I told Pope Leo, he's Catholic and I'm Jewish, but the 2005 White Sox World Series victory is a miracle we can all agree on.' Bradley Bishop, a rep for The Daily Wire, told The Hollywood Reporter by email on Wednesday that Shapiro had requested an audience with the pope and 'was granted a spot quickly.' Shapiro and Pope Leo met on Wednesday in Vatican City's St. Peter's Square, according to a post on The Daily Wire recapping the brief meeting during baciamano, which translates to 'kissing the hand.' While this is traditionally an honor only for heads of state and diplomats visiting the Vatican, Shapiro was waved in and got the meet-up he desired. In the image he posted to Twitter, Shapiro is holding a card and a package in his left and right hands. This was a gift for the new pope. 'He smiled at my remark, and then I handed him a White Sox 2005 team signed baseball. He asked if it was a gift, and seemed surprised and delighted that it was — you can see it on the tape. I believe this is a man who truly lives in joy,' Shapiro said. TDW reported that the conservative media power player described the event as 'beautiful — a reminder that Biblical values span the globe, across languages and borders.' Pope Leo, whose birth name is Robert Prevost, has the distinction of being the first American pope. He was born in 1955 in Chicago and went on to do missionary work in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s and was elected prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine and prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Shapiro is not the first big name to stand before the new pope. On Monday, cinema icon Al Pacino got some face time with the Holy Father while in Italy shooting a new movie, Maserati: The Brothers, about the famous car designers. The actor gave the new pope a mini Maserati as a gift to commemorate the upcoming film. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
The Hill
08-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
White House dismisses Pride Month as WorldPride gathers in Washington
President Trump's administration has not formally recognized Pride Month this year, but has doubled down on LGBTQ-related actions some advocates deem hostile — even as one of the world's largest Pride celebrations takes place in the nation's capital. Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has 'no plans' to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month. Trump declined to issue Pride Month proclamations throughout his first term but briefly acknowledged Pride in a 2019 social media post touting his administration's efforts to decriminalize homosexuality globally and recognizing the'outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great nation.' This year, Trump has not acknowledged Pride Month publicly. But the Education Department on Monday said it would instead recognize June as 'Title IX Month' in a nod to the administration's efforts to use the 1972 civil rights law to bar transgender students from girls' and women's school sports, restrooms and locker rooms. 'This is going to come as maybe tough news for the Trump administration to stomach, but June is Pride Month, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not,' said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy group. 'And Pride is, and always has been, a protest, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not.' Pride Month marches and celebrations began in June 1970, one year after demonstrators demanded equal rights for LGBTQ Americans at the Stonewall riots in New York. Three decades later, former President Clinton issued the first presidential proclamation designating June 'Gay and Lesbian Pride Month,' the scope of which was expanded under former President Obama to include bisexual and transgender people. Former President Biden issued Pride Month proclamations each of his four years in office. This year's Pride festivities are not only being brushed off by the White House, however. On Tuesday, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), whom Trump endorsed as a 'champion of our America First agenda' in her most recent re-election bid, introduced a resolution declaring June 'Family Month' in a rebuke of Pride. 'By recognizing June as Family Month, we reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design,' she told the conservative news outlet The Daily Wire. A group of Republican lawmakers, including Miller, also railed this week against a post by the children's television show 'Sesame Street' that acknowledged Pride Month. They accused the nonprofit TV network PBS, on which 'Sesame Street' has long aired, of 'grooming' children, an accusation that opponents of LGBTQ rights have long used to associate LGBTQ identity with predatory behavior. 'This hostile rhetoric, the lengths to which they've gone to punish people for existing as LGBTQ, all of it is a testament to just how much our power scares them,' said Wolf, noting that Washington's pushback against Pride comes as the city hosts WorldPride, an international LGBTQ Pride event that's expected to draw millions to D.C. Within the administration, Trump's Defense Department's actions have made perhaps the biggest splash during the first week of Pride Month. On Tuesday, reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename an oil tanker named for the assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk, with an official announcement expected next week and planned intentionally for Pride Month. Milk, a Navy lieutenant who served during the Korean War and in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, spearheaded an effort to mobilize California voters to oppose a 1978 ballot measure that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. The proposal to strip the ship of Milk's name drew widespread media attention and criticism. 'I don't agree with it,' Retired Adm. James Stavridis, once floated as a possible candidate for Secretary of State during the first Trump administration, said Friday on 'The Michael Smerconish Program.' He questioned why 'we need to rename this ship' at 'this moment' during Pride Month. The Navy is also considering renaming other ships named after prominent civil rights leaders, according to CBS News, including Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall and Lucy Stone. This week, Senate Republicans blocked a Democrat-led resolution that would have expressed the upper chamber's belief 'that the Department of Defense should not seek to remove these names.' This week, the military also ordered transgender service members to self-identify and start a voluntary separation from the armed forces by Friday, also during Pride Month. In an email, Alex Wagner, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said Hegseth's recent actions targeting Pride Month and LGBTQ people at the Pentagon 'have made him look petty and silly.' Wagner, who served as assistant secretary of the Air Force under former President Biden, helped organize the Defense Department's first Pride event in 2012 while serving in the Obama administration. 'There is absolutely no question, in my mind and in my experience, that the greatest engine for social justice and civil rights in American history is the U.S. military, and it's provided opportunity for everyone, no matter where they come from and no matter what they look like, to succeed,' Wagner said in an interview. 'To denigrate the service of those who sought a career serving the country … is evidence of someone who has not the right experience, not the right insight.' Hegseth, a frequent critic of efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, has opposed recognizing or celebrating specific identities or differences in the military. 'I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is, 'our diversity is our strength,'' Hegseth said in a February address at the Pentagon. The former Fox News personality and Army veteran also ended the Defense Department's recognition of cultural and heritage months, including Pride Month, Black History Month and Women's History Month, shortly after his Senate confirmation. In guidance titled 'Identity Months Dead at DoD,' Hegseth stated, 'Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.'
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Pride Month Kicks Off, Ted Cruz Leads Anti-Abortion Push To Make June 'Life Month'
Sens. Todd Young (Ind.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) are leading Republican efforts to brand June as 'Life Month' during the already celebrated Pride Month, which honors the achievements and culture of the LGBTQ+ community. 'Every human life is worthy of protection, and it is especially incumbent upon Americans and lawmakers to protect the most vulnerable among us,' Cruz said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. According to Young's statementintroducing the resolution, 'Life Month' is meant to 'recognize the dignity of human life, commends those who promote life, and encourages policymakers to continue providing resources to empower women and families to choose life.' While the senators did have 11 other months they could designate as 'Life Month,' they said the resolution marks June as the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wadein June 2022. Cruz and Young's pitch rings similar to Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller's resolution, which suggested fully replacing 'Pride Month' with 'Family Month.' 'By recognizing June as Family Month, we reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design,' Miller told right-wing news site The Daily Wire. Neither Cruz nor Young said they want to replace Pride Month, but their actions come at a time where the Trump administration has launched aggressive attacks against the LGBTQ+ community. Under his administration, President Donald Trump has erased or altered Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pages focused on the risks of suicide among LGBTQ children, school safety and health disparities. He has also signed executive orders that declared it official U.S. policy that there are only two sexes, male and female, and banned people with gender dysphoria from military service. Earlier this week, Trump's Department of Education also formally declared June as 'Title IX Month.'On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, which honors the slain LGBTQ+ rights icon. This move reportedly was intentionally made during Pride Month. A total of 26 Republican senators co-sponsored the resolution, including Alabama's Tommy Tuberville and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham. 'If we are going to dedicate entire months to recognizing every group under the sun, the least we can do is dedicate June to protecting unborn babies,' Tuberville said on X.
