Zefr Launches Brand Suitability Suite for Video, Enabling Brands to Apply GARM’s Responsible Media Framework Across Video Platforms Without Keyword Overblocking

Zefr, the leading data company for brand suitability in video, today announced the release of the Brand Suitability Suite, software that enables brands and agencies to apply the industry-leading GARM framework to their video advertising. The self-service product will be available for global brands, enabling unparalleled transparency and control for video.

As responsible marketing has come to the forefront of the investment process, the GARM framework has been widely adopted by the world’s largest agencies, brands and platforms to create a consistent framework for brand safety and brand suitability. Zefr’s product enables buyers to take this framework and apply it to video platforms with precision - providing third-party trust with content-level accuracy.

“With the GARM framework, brand suitability is no longer subjective -- it is measurable,” said Rich Raddon, co-founder and co-CEO of Zefr. “Zefr's Suitability Suite represents a sea change from legacy solutions that gave too little control or transparency with brand suitability in video."

With Zefr’s new self-service product, brands can log-in and choose their Suitability preferences from the 11 GARM Suitability categories across low, medium, and high risk. To inform each decision, the tool provides example content that maps back each risk tolerance definition -- from educational content in Low Risk to entertainment related content in Medium Risk -- to bring much needed transparency to the Suitability decision-making process. With their selections made, brands can deploy the brand suitability settings for video activations across platforms, including YouTube activations via DV360.

"The GARM framework has been essential in establishing accountability and consistency in the advertising industry. Zefr's Suitability Suite helps bring the framework to video platforms to improve our advertisers' controls for brand suitability," said Julie Kandel, senior partner, director of brand safety North America at GroupM.

Zefr’s product is powered by their patented application of “Human-in-the-Loop”, where the company conducts scaled human reviews which serve as training data for machine learning. This approach has been calibrated for video platforms, effectively reducing false positives that occur from legacy open-web approaches like keyword block-lists and semantic analysis. With Zefr’s approach, brands can reduce the unintended consequences of keyword overblocking, which has been measured to eliminate 100s of millions of low-risk impressions from video campaigns in tests.