The UKs Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) has launched its Good Practice Principles for the display market, intended to minimise the risk of ad misplacement.

The principles lay out industry-wide standards, including use of Content Verification tools to improve transparency and make it less likely that ads will be associated with inappropriate or illegal content that could hurt an advertisers brand reputation.

Businesses will be able to get their advertising misplacement policies and processes verified by an independent third party in order to receive a seal of compliance that advertisers and agencies can look for when buying inventory.

“For nearly two years, marketers have simply needed some sort of kitemark to tell them that their chosen advertising partner belongs to a scheme that gives assurances that their ad creative will appear on brand safe sites,” said Tom Pepper, UK MD at Vibrant Media, commenting on the news.

“However, over this time, marketers have needed to be extra mindful of ad providers brand safety policies – particularly when the ad technology theyre investigating is as viewable as ours. This has actually been of great benefit to the industry as a whole as its been necessary for marketers to have specific conversations with ad providers about their solutions to the misplacement problem.”