Skip to main content

    Brand Safety

    Brand Safety

    safety

    The practice of preventing ads from appearing alongside content that could damage a brand's reputation — codified by the GARM framework into 12 universal content categories.

    What is brand safety?

    Brand safety ensures ads do not appear next to harmful, illegal or reputationally damaging content. The GARM (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) framework defines 12 standard categories — including Adult, Crime, Hate Speech, Terrorism, Illegal Drugs, and Misinformation — each with four severity tiers (Floor, High, Medium, Low).

    Modern brand safety

    • Pre-bid keyword + URL blocking
    • Semantic LLM analysis for context modifiers (e.g. news reporting on hate vs. promoting it)
    • Post-bid verification (IAS, DoubleVerify, MOAT)
    • Brand suitability — aligning content tone with brand values, beyond strict safety

    C Wire runs GARM-aligned semantic analysis with Gemini-3 Flash on every bid request.

    Related reading