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This is Why Brand Suitability Matters to Your Online Business

A relevant message can make your business while an irrelevant one can break it. 

If you’re starting an online business or have already done so, it’s important to know a few things about brand suitability. It’s a must-do when it comes to advertising, especially when it’s easy to do online thanks to ad platforms on Facebook, Google, and other places. 

We’ll be explaining a bit further about why brand suitability matters to your online business. Having a deep understanding of it will make the difference between whether or not your online business will succeed or fail. You’ll need advertising to get the word out, so why not make the message more relevant to the right audience?

Without further ado, let’s kick off by explaining what brand suitability is and show you some examples of why it matters in your business.

What is Brand Suitability?

Brand suitability uses relevant context. Specifically, it can use recent events as a way to leverage and position its message to the right audience.

An example of this is wildfires. In recent years, parts of the west would deal with wildfires to the point where it would take weeks, even months to be extinguished. Because of these fires, scores of homes and businesses are damaged. 

An insurance company would advertise in a position that disaster can and will happen at any time, even when you least expect it. They want to give their customers peace of mind knowing that they are covered when things go wrong. From there, the customer would take action to enroll in an insurance plan that covers them from issues that would otherwise cost them a lot of money. 

In an online environment, it’s possible to get the right message in front of the right people. As an online business, you know your market to the point where you can put together a relevant message that will usually hit the bullseye (or near it.) With a platform like Facebook, you can laser focus on the right audience if you have specific data like gender, age, location, and so on.

Advertising in the “Wrong Places”

The subtitle has you a little confused, right? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. What exactly do we mean by this?

This can be attacked from different angles. One such example is YouTube. Most of the time, videos will have advertisements before it plays. 

Some of these videos can have political views that do not line up with the views of your business (or you personally.) For example, your ad could appear in a video about a specific political issue. This may lead to some assumptions about where you stand on certain issues.

Keep in mind, this kind of advertising placement is not always intentional. But it may get some people to the point where they think that such an ad will appear in a video that they strongly disagree with and “boycott” the brand without warning. 

Because of this, brands today have the power of blocking their ads on specific websites and channels. This will give them more brand safety and less controversy. So, if you don’t want your business to be advertised before a video that doesn’t align with your personal political views, you can block that channel. 

The Importance of Brand Safety

Brand safety is often intertwined with brand suitability. The concept behind it is that you want the brand’s messaging to be appropriate and less controversial. However, brand safety has come at a cost today to a point where brand suitability appears to be the more superior approach.

In online platforms, there are rules that come into play to ensure that your advertisements adhere to brand safety and are relevant to your brand. Any kind of inappropriate or unapproved content on your ads will cause them to be pulled from the platform. And it may hurt your chances of creating successful ads (not to mention, your business in general.)

So, does brand safety die a horrible death at the hands of brand suitability? Not likely. It will likely go gently into that good night over time. 

But, still, the more you play it safe to avoid controversy, false advertising, and irrelevant messaging, the better off you’ll be. 

Final Thoughts

When it comes to your online business, brand suitability matters a lot. Especially in times when you have more control over where your brand can advertise (and where they may not for some reason or another.) It’s important for you to consider your options in terms of where to advertise and know where your market is all the time.

It takes a successful message to make your online business successful. And, yes, controversy has yielded great success for some businesses. But, they have been few and far between and carefully placed their ads in the right places.

But, it’s up to you to decide which is suitable for your brand and what’s not when it comes to advertising. 


Written by Jacob M


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