Spanish and Portuguese-language media group builds brand-safety tool to reassure news-wary advertisers

For some advertisers, appearing next to a negative news article that describes a nasty terrorist attack or leans too much to one side of a polarizing political debate, will always be a hard no. But Prisa Media, the Spanish and Portuguese-language media group, has a plan to alleviate this advertiser reticence. Prisa Media owns the leading newspapers El País and Cinco Días in the region and the company has created a tool that uses machine learning to create contextually relevant and brand-safe audience segments across approximately 200 million ad impressions El País generates every three weeks.

But the way hard news is currently defined is too blunt. Prisa Media has a dashboard that isolates the articles — of the 15,000 articles published each month on El País — that are potentially risky for brands. To determine how people respond emotionally to its articles, the team worked with market research firm Cocktail Analysis to monitor the responses to articles supplied by 2,000 participants. That data is then fed into the algorithm. So far, the publisher has created 32 audience emotions and created ‘happiness’ segments among others, to put advertisers at ease.