Brand Safety & Suitability

If Your Brand Safety Strategy Is Global-Only, You’re Already Exposed in India

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

When a media team says, ‘we’re running a pan-India video campaign,’ they’re treating India as a single content environment. But it isn’t. India is a diverse market. Millions of content pieces go live on various video platforms every day. Each operating in a different language, shaped by different cultural norms, with entirely different definitions of what is acceptable, sensitive, or harmful. This is exactly where the risk begins. As an advertiser running programmatic ad campaigns across video platforms, you assume your targeting and exclusions are doing their job. But even as you read this, your ads could be appearing next to content you would never consciously choose to appear beside. A vashikaran tutorial. A graphic crime reconstruction video. Content in a language your brand safety tool cannot read. And the most concerning part? Traditional brand safety tools and platform filters don’t show you this side of reality. To help you identify this gap before it turns into a brand risk, this blog breaks down: What unsafe ad placements actually look like in India’s content ecosystem Why your current brand safety tools are missing them What India-ready brand safety requires What changes for your brand when you get it right Let’s start with what’s actually happening to your ads. What Content Ad Placements Are Your Ads Actually Running Next To? You didn’t choose these ad placements. But your brand is on them. When advertisers try to tap onto wider audiences through ad campaigns, they approve creatives, audiences, and budgets. They almost never see where their ads actually land. Here are the placement categories that brands in India often appear next to, without knowing it. Placement 1: Occult, Black Magic & Superstition Content What is it? Channels dedicated to vashikaran rituals, black magic spells, tantric practices, and superstition-based content. These videos use occult imagery, ritual settings, and fear-based messaging to attract millions of views across regional markets. Why it’s unsafe? These channels are algorithmically treated as general interest content. Platform classifiers read the title and tags, and often miss what the content actually depicts. A brand’s ad plays in the middle of a black magic ritual video, not because anything went wrong technically, but because nothing flagged it. Brand Impact For FMCG, BFSI, or any brand built on consumer trust, appearing next to content that promotes supernatural harm, fear, and occult practice directly contradicts the brand’s credibility. Viewers in these markets don’t separate the ad from the content. If your brand appeared there, it’s perceived as endorsing it. Placement 2: Made for Kids & Cartoon Content What is it? Children’s cartoon channels or animated content, that are classified by platforms as “Made for Kids.” These channels attract massive viewership across markets and are frequently part of broad run-of-network campaigns. Why is it unsuitable? “Made for Kids” content limits ad personalization, meaning your ad is reaching an unintended, non-converting audience. More critically, a brand running campaign for financial products, or adult-oriented services appearing on children’s content creates an immediate brand suitability issue. Brand Impact Every impression served on such content is a direct drain on campaign budget with zero return, no conversion intent, no brand recall, and no audience value. You end up paying for reach that does nothing for your brand. Placement 3: Adult & Sexually Suggestive Content What is it? Adult fashion content or OTT platform trailers that appear as standard video inventory across platforms. These videos carry no explicit adult content warning but contain visually suggestive material such as nudity, intimate couple scenarios, and adult-oriented fashion that platforms routinely monetize as general content. Why it’s unsafe? The problem here is a categorization gap. This content doesn’t meet the threshold for explicit adult content, so it doesn’t get flagged. But it is still considered under a brand-unsafe zone for most advertisers, particularly family-facing categories. Brand Impact When a trusted brand ad appears mid-roll on adult suggestive content, the viewer’s perception shifts immediately. The brand is no longer seen as careful or credible. For brands that spend heavily on trust-building, the reputational cost of a single misplaced impression, when screenshotted and shared, far exceeds the media value of the placement. Placement 4: Regional or Vernacular Content What is it? Regional language videos, in Bengali, Gujarati, and other vernacular languages, that depict weapons and armed violence in dramatized formats or normalize illegal gambling and Satta culture as regional entertainment. Why is it unsafe? Such content never triggers standard brand safety filters. A Bengali crime thriller and a Gujarati Satta video look identical to a global classifier; both are regional language videos with no English tags to read. Traditional brand safety tools cannot identify the content category, the cultural context, or the risk the placement carries. Brand Impact A brand appearing next to a video depicting a man pointing a gun at a woman, or next to content that normalizes illegal gambling, signals a complete lack of campaign oversight. For any brand associated with responsibility and trust, these placements directly undermine the credibility being built through every other brand touchpoint. Why Traditional Brand Safety Tools Miss Seeing Irrelevant or Brand-Unsafe Ad Placements? Here are the reasons why basic brand safety platform filters and tools fail to identify brand unsafe ad placements: Can’t read regional languages Most tools scan video titles and tags to check for unsafe content. If a vashikaran video is titled entirely in Hindi script with no English text, the tool finds nothing to read, marks it as safe, and your ad runs. Loses accuracy in translation Some tools translate regional content into English before checking it. But slang, coded phrases, and culturally loaded words don’t translate accurately. By the time the tool reads it, harmful content looks completely harmless. Moreover, some phrases or words that might appear to be safe in one region can be controversial or unsafe in another. Relies only on metadata, titles, and tags for classification of content Tools that only read titles and descriptions miss what is actually inside the video. A video titled “family entertainment”

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Brand Safety & Suitability: You Might Be Unknowingly Showing Ads to Kids – Know How

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Yes, you read it right. Your ads often get placed next to kids’ content. And the concerning part? Your brand safety filters don’t identify these placements as unsafe, because technically they aren’t. What they are, however, are brand-unsuitable placements. It is a systemic gap in how traditional brand safety tools classify content and demographic targeting that affects more campaigns than most advertisers realize. In this blog, we break down exactly how this happens through real examples, why your current filters and targeting settings may not be enough, and what it actually takes to ensure your ads are brand safe and brand suitable, in every sense of the word. Brand Safety & Brand Suitability: They Are Not The Same Thing Before we get into how this happens, it’s important to understand two terms that are often used interchangeably but mean very different. Brand Safety Brand safety is about making sure your ad doesn’t appear next to content that is harmful, offensive, or controversial — violence, hate speech, adult content, or extremist material. Most advertisers today are aware of brand safety and have some level of filtering in place for it. Brand Suitability This goes one level deeper. Brand suitability is not just about avoiding inappropriate placements. It’s about making sure the content environment your ad appears in actually fits in the environment, context, and sentiment of your brand, your product, and the audience you’re trying to reach. Here is a simple example. A children’s cartoon is not unsafe content. It carries no violence, no hate speech, nothing harmful. But if you are a premium financial brand targeting urban professionals between 30 and 50, running your ad before that cartoon is a suitability failure, not a safety failure. The content is perfectly fine. The contextual ad targeting is completely wrong. This is the gap most advertisers are not solving for. Why Do Basic Brand Safety Tools Fail to Identify the Brand Suitability Issues? Here are the two major reasons why your ads keep appearing besides irrelevant content ad placements. The Content Identification Problem Platforms and traditional brand safety tool do their classification work by reading what is written about a video – the title, the description, the tags, and other metadata. They do not actually watch the video. What’s written about a piece of content and what’s actually inside it can be two entirely different things. A video can be tagged as a cartoon and correctly land in a kids’ content category, but still carry themes, visuals, or emotional tones that are completely at odds with what that label suggests. The Audience Targeting Problem When an advertiser sets up a campaign targeting adults, say, 25 to 45 year olds, the platform uses data signals like age registered in Gmail accounts, browsing behavior, and declared gender to identifyand reach that profile. The platform then delivers the ad to that account. Technically, it has done exactly what it was asked to do. But here is what no one identifies; the platform has absolutely no way of knowing who is physically sitting in front of the screen at that moment. The account belongs to an adult; however, the viewer watching the screen at that moment could be a child. And this can only be prevented if the content is identified not just based on title and tags, but based on content, context, sentiment, as well as frame-level video analysis. How mFilterIt’s Brand Safety Solution Solves Brand Suitability Issues? mFilterIt’s brand suitability and brand safety solution, PACE, addresses both the content gap and the visibility gap that traditional tools leave behind. Here’s how it works and what it delivers for advertisers. Analyses videos frame by frame including visuals, audio, on-screen text, sentiment, and scene context to understand what a video actually contains, not just what it is labelled as. Classifies placements against GARM brand safety categories with risk levels as high, medium, and low, so exclusions are precise and not over-blocking safe inventory. Operates in real time, detecting and blocking unsuitable placements before your ad impression is served, not after the budget is already spent. Builds a curated whitelist of videos that are not just safe but genuinely suitable for your specific brand, audience, and campaign sentiment. Identifies regional and vernacular content with language-specific ML models built for the diverse market, where over a billion hours of regional content is consumed every month. The result: Your ad runs in the right context, in front of the right audience, every time. Conclusion Brand safety keeps your ad out of harmful environments. On the other hand, brand suitability makes sure it lands in the right one. Both matter. And right now, most advertisers are only solving either one or none. So, before you take another campaign live, ask this: Is the content my ad is running next to reinforcing my brand or quietly working against it? The brands that get this right aren’t just the ones with genuine results. They’re the ones who know, with precision and confidence, exactly where their ads are landing. To learn more about how we can help, get in touch with our experts today.

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Why Brands in MENA Need to Go Beyond Keyword Blocking Approach for Brand Safety in 2026?

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

“If I block risky keywords and categories, my ads won’t appear next to unsafe content.” That’s the belief many brands operate on today and it’s a dangerous oversimplification. Keyword blocking was a good approach when internet was a simple place where URL based tracking was enough. Today, consumer associate brands with the kind of placement they are appearing. Therefore, the context and sentiment analysis of the content is perennial, where keyword blocking as a technique fails. The challenge has grown with the rise of AI slops, massive volumes of low-quality, auto-generated content created at scale. These pages often look legitimate, avoid obvious risky keywords, and slip past basic filters, increasing the risk of ads appearing next to misleading or low-quality content. When your ads appear in such environments, viewers often assume your brand is endorsing or even funding that content, directly impacting perception and trust. Hence, we have broken down how media brand safety measures need to evolve, why legacy tools no longer suffice, and how brand can stay safe without compromising reach and relevance. Why Keyword Blocking is not Effective Anymore in 2026? A word that a brand may label as “risky” can often appear in completely safe and relevant contexts such as news articles, educational videos, sports commentary, or everyday conversations. For instance, a keyword like “junk food” might appear in a nutrition awareness video or a healthy eating guide. If brands blindly block such keywords, they risk over-blocking, which can prevent their ads from appearing next to high-quality, brand-safe content. On the flip side, genuinely unsafe or unsuitable content often avoids obvious trigger words. Instead, it relies on coded language, slang, abbreviations, or even visual cues. This leads to under-blocking, where harmful content slips through filters and ads appear in inappropriate environments. In visual-first formats such as reels, thumbnails, and shorts, the lack of text led to frequent misclassification, allowing unsafe or irrelevant contexts to go undetected. Similarly, vernacular UGC with emotional or culturally sensitive undertones was often marked safe because legacy systems cannot interpret tone or sentiment in regional languages. This flags major concerns especially in regions like MENA, where religious and cultural sensitivity strongly influence brand perception. Relying only on keyword blocking is not enough, because much of the content is vernacular. A video may seem neutral to an English-based system, but still carry political, emotional, or culturally sensitive undertones. As a result, such content often gets wrongly marked as safe, making contextual advertising more important there. The Reality: Legacy Systems Don’t Understand Context Platform-built brand safety tools focus on what’s easiest to detect: keywords, metadata, and surface-level signals. What they miss is contextual intelligence: tone, intent, visuals, sentiment, and cultural relevance. How Does an Advanced Brand Safety Approach Keep You a Step Ahead? Our campaign analysis revealed that 7–9% of YouTube impressions ran on Made-for-Kids content, wasting spend on non-converting audiences and weakening brand relevance. Ads were also found on Satta and gambling-related sites, where coded language and neutral-looking metadata slipped past platform filters. These findings underline a clear reality: the most significant brand safety risks lie beyond keywords, in context platforms fail to see. You would not wish this for your brand, right? To combat this, an advanced approach, combining AI, NLP, machine learning, enable advertisers to – Understand content in local and regional contexts By looking beyond keywords to understand tone, sentiment, and cultural nuance in regional and vernacular content. This helps brands avoid placements that may seem safe on the surface but are misaligned with local sensitivities or brand values. Interpret visual and video-led environments In formats like reels, thumbnails, short videos, and OTT content, where text is limited, it analyses visual signals to assess whether the surrounding content is appropriate for a brand. Balance protection with reach By focusing on contextual ads rather than rigid word lists, it reduces unnecessary blocking of relevant inventory while still identifying genuinely unsafe environments. Apply brand safety consistently across channels The same contextual approach is used across YouTube, UGC platforms, OTT, mobile apps, and programmatic media, helping brands maintainconsistent standards regardless of where ads appear. Close gaps left by platform-level checks Using multi-signal, post-bid contextual analysis and continuously updated blacklists and whitelists, it addresses blind spots that keyword and category-based controls often miss—supporting more accurate media brand safety decisions in 2025. Conclusion As content becomes increasingly visual, contextual, and culturally nuanced, traditional brand safety measures can no longer keep up. Platform-level controls are often reactive and lack the intelligence to understand intent, sentiment, or environment. To safeguard reputation while maintaining reach, brands need solutions that adapt in real time, analyze context, and anticipate risks before they escalate. In today’s landscape, where trust is built on perception, updating brand safety strategies isn’t just prudent—it’s critical. FAQs What are the key aspects of brand safety? Following are the key aspects of brand safety – Safe and suitable content placement Context and sentiment understanding Cultural and regional sensitivity Fraud, MFA, and AI slop detection Transparency and advertiser control Why is keyword blocking no longer effective? Because it lacks context and intent understanding. Keyword blocking often over-blocks safe content and misses unsafe content that uses coded language, slang, visuals, or regional terms, making it inaccurate in today’s complex digital environment. What are AI slops and why are they a risk to brands? AI slops are large volumes of low-quality, auto-generated content created mainly to attract ad revenue. They often look legitimate but lack credibility and brand-safe intent, increasing the risk of ads appearing next to misleading, low-value, or unsafe content, which can damage brand trust and performance.

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What is Brand Safety? The Role of Brand Safety in Digital Advertising

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Imagine this: your audience associates your brand with inappropriate content that you never had the intention of funding. Recently, advertisers raised concerns when their ads on Spotify were found appearing alongside sexually explicit audio content. The issue wasn’t the platform but the association. These brands never intended to be associated with such content. The ads were placed through automated digital advertising systems designed to maximize reach and efficiency. Yet, the brands got associated. This is exactly what happens to brands in the digital advertising ecosystem. Ads today travel across thousands of websites, videos, and platforms through automated systems. While brands carefully plan their messaging and targeting, they don’t always have visibility into where their ads finally appear. When an ad shows up next to misleading, controversial, or inappropriate content, the brand gets associated with it, regardless of intent or awareness. Sometimes, one wrong association is enough to damage the brand reputation or trigger backlash. This is where the role of brand safety in digital advertising becomes prominent. It helps brands maintain control over where their ads appear and ensures marketing efforts build trust instead of unknowingly damaging it. That’s why understanding what is brand safety, why it matters, and who needs to care about it is the first step towards ensuring safe advertising. What is Brand Safety? In digital advertising, brand safety refers to ensuring your brand ads do not appear next to irrelevant, inappropriate, illegal, or unsafe content that might harm your brand’s reputation, credibility, and brand values. It includes measures taken to ensure safe ad placements across social media platforms, apps, and websites. For example, when a reputed brand’s ad appears on a gambling or lottery results website, it creates a risky association, even if the ad itself is legitimate. Such placements can mislead users, violate brand safety norms, and damage trust, making brand safety a critical concern for advertisers. However, brand safety is ambiguous as the approach or definition of safety may vary from brand to brand and also from product to product that is being advertised. Thus, the approach taken by different brands, advertisers, or publishers also depends on two other related concepts: Brand suitability Brand suitability focuses on whether content aligns with a brand’s tone, values, and risk tolerance. Content may be safe, but still not appropriate for every brand. Brand relevancy Brand relevancy ensures ads appear in environments that make sense for the audience’s mindset, context, and intent. Therefore, brand safety prevents ads from appearing next to harmful content. Brand relevancy and brand suitability help you ensure your ads appear next to not only safe but also contextually and sentimentally relevant content. Why is Brand Safety Important in 2026? The audience interacts with brands through ads and associates them with the content alongside. However, with digital advertising controls shifting from manual placements to algorithm-driven distribution, content is no longer static. User-generated videos, regional language content, short-form media, live streams, and AI-assisted content now dominate digital platforms. Furthermore, in the era of AI, content is created, amplified, and modified quickly. This also means misinformation and disinformation also spread faster than ever, making it harder for brands to distinguish credible environments from misleading or manipulated ones. Consumers don’t separate ads from the content around them. That is why, when an ad appears next to questionable or misleading content, the negative association sticks, often subconsciously. What are the Risks of Brand Safety Violation? The impact is not always immediate or dramatic. More often, brand safety failures lead to: Loss of trust as users start doubting the brand Wrong brand perception due to controversial or risky surrounding content Lower engagement because users ignore ads in unsafe environment Poor brand recall because the brand is remembered negatively or not at all Weaker campaign results such as lower clicks and conversions Wasted ad spend on impressions or views that bring no real value Higher compliance risk, especially for regulated industries Long-term damage to brand value, which is hard and costly to fix Brand safety issues can cause instant backlash, weaken brand reputation, credibility, and create damage that is harder to reverse easily. Who Should Care About Brand Safety and Related Issues? Brand safety is a shared responsibility. Ensuring safe ad placements is not just a one-person job. It affects everyone involved in the digital advertising ecosystem. Therefore, everyone, including advertisers, publishers, agencies, and ad platforms, plays a distinct role in keeping advertising environments safe, credible, and effective. Advertisers: Protecting Brand Trust and Long-Term Value Advertisers face the most visible and immediate risk when brand safety filters fail. When an ad appears next to inappropriate, misleading, or unsafe content, consumers don’t blame the platform or the algorithm; they associate the experience with the brand. For example, if a baby product ad shows up next to a terrorist attack video will instantly feel out of place. If advertisers don’t actively monitor such placements, the impact goes beyond reputation. Media budgets get wasted on low-quality environments; engagement drops, and performance metrics become misleading. Over time, this erodes brand equity that took years to build. Therefore, for advertisers, brand safety is not just about avoiding embarrassment; it’s about protecting trust, credibility, and ROI. Publishers: Maintaining Credibility and Revenue Potential Publishers depend heavily on advertiser confidence. When a website, app, or channel becomes known for hosting unsafe, misleading, or low-quality content, advertisers start pulling back, even if the publisher has strong reach or traffic. For instance, publishers running sensational or unverified content may still attract impressions, but premium advertisers often avoid such environments. This leads to lower CPMs, reduced demand, and long-term monetization challenges. If publishers don’t prioritize brand safety, they risk being labelled as unsafe or low-quality sites. Once that perception sets in, it becomes difficult to attract high-value advertisers again. Therefore, for publishers, brand safety is directly linked to credibility, sustainability, and long-term revenue growth. Agencies: Preserving Client Trust and Strategic Value Agencies are responsible for planning, buying, and optimizing digital campaigns for various brands. Clients trust agencies not only to drive

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How CTV Advertising Is Reshaping Audience Interest and Need for Smarter Optimization

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Media and entertainment industry has embarked on a journey towards more personalized and precise shift. People nowadays do not wait for their favourite show to broadcast, they simply pick one and proceed that’s the freedom and flexibility that Connected TV (CTV) brings, and this is the reason people are shifting their focus from TV to CTV. Brands on the other hand have the perfect chance with CTV to directly target the most relevant audience and this can be possible if ads are optimized rightly, placed besides the right context, and is shown at a normal frequency that the impact sticks by the viewers. As the audience interest towards CTV advertising grew, it opened the gates of opportunities for brands to target the right audience at the right time while maintaining brand safety standards. Viewers consuming content on CTV makes it easier for brands to map his/her interest, hence presenting a relevant ad placement which is more likely to be noticed, absorbed, and remembered, unlike background viewing on linear TV. Now, as a brand, you know whom to target and for branding purposes this means your ad spend is reaching the right audience. This empowers CTV campaigns to deliver more efficient campaign performance and enhanced ROI. In this blog, you will discover – Why CTV is central to modern building Why CTV advertising is a good approach for brand campaigns How can brands make the most of CTV advertising Why CTV Is Central to Modern Brand Building Television industry has always been an easier and the most convenient approach for brands to reach to their target audience. Now, when the major talks are about a shift in the way people perceive media and entertainment, CTV has gradually and now much strongly positioned itself as the most invested destination where content is consumed in galore. This embarked brands on a journey towards more centralized brand building approach to reach wider and most importantly relevant audience. Here’s how it has become a centre for modern brand building – Rapid shift from linear TV to CTV An eye-blinking shift from tradition TV to CTV emerged from the control on viewability that audience receives. Instead of waiting for a particular time to watch a particular show, viewers can watch anything at any time, make a switch rather rapid and seamless. Growing base of cord-cutters At the same time, the growing base of cord-cutters has reduced the effectiveness of traditional TV for reaching younger and digitally native audiences. CTV allows brands to stay present where these audiences actually spend time, without sacrificing scale. High-impact, full-screen brand exposure When brand ads are viewed on CTV especially on the large screens at homes, impact is not restricted to merely seeing, it stays with the audience, driving awareness, recall, and long-term brand perception. Intent-driven and content-aware audiences From the vast pool of available options, brands can pick any source of entertainment based on their interests, mood, and context. This enables brands to align messages with what audiences are watching, creating relevance without relying on intrusive data signals. Why CTV Advertising is a Good Approach for Brand Campaigns? While we know the importance of brand ads, merely running an ad is not enough. Brands must also optimize their ads timely to reach the right audience at the right time with the right frequency. Here’s why ad optimization matters more on CTV – Aligning with the viewer’s mindset Your ads must be optimized in a manner that they are presented to the right audience. For instance, a viewer streaming a live sports match, a crime documentary, or a family movie is in a very different emotional and cognitive state. Ads that align with this mindset feel relevant and natural, while those that can’t feel jarring or out of place. Optimization on CTV therefore requires understanding not just who the audience is, but what they are watching and why. Contextual ads placements Context directly influences brand perception. The content surrounding your brand’s ads shapes how your ad is perceived by viewers. On CTV, where attention is high and associations are strong, contextual ads can amplify brand reputation. Eliminating ad fatigue As a viewer who is deeply invested in the CTV content, nothing becomes more frustrating than watching the same ad on repeat. If your ads are being shown repetitively, it impacts your brand’s image negatively, destroying the entire purpose of running an ad. Hence, with right frequency capping, brands can optimize their ads and show to the audience to a point that it remains solely for awareness and doesn’t exploit customer interest. How Can Brands Make the Most of CTV Advertising? When it comes to CTV ads, brands cannot limit their approach to optimizing ads, they must also ensure their ads are shown beside a contextually safe and relevant content. When ads run on complex CTV systems, here’s how brands can make the most of CTV advertising while simultaneously ensuring brand safety – Moving Beyond Keyword Blocking: Keyword blocking alone is no longer sufficient. Brands need to assess meaning and intent, not just words, to avoid both overblocking safe content and missing real risks. Analysing the Full Video Environment: True brand safety requires understanding the entire video experience, visuals, audio, text, and surrounding content, not just titles or metadata. Maintaining Dynamic Control Over Content & Channels: Brand safety must be flexible. Marketers need real-time control to adapt to changing content trends, channels, and emerging risks. Accounting for Regional & Language Nuance: Context varies by region and language. Effective strategies consider local culture and sentiment to ensure ads appear in appropriate environments everywhere. Using AI & ML to Scale Safely: AI and ML enable real-time analysis at scale, helping brands protect campaigns efficiently while maintaining reach and performance. Conclusion Connected TV has already won attention. The real challenge now is what brands do with it. High completion rates and premium screens mean little if ad placement is not aligned with the right audiences and supported by strong brand safety controls. A smarter CTV approach moves beyond reach and viewability to focus on relevance, environment, and intent. When brands tailor their CTV strategy—optimizing where ads appear, how they align with content, and how audiences experience them—CTV stops being just a branding channel. It becomes a performance driver. Want to know how? Contact us now! FAQs What is Connected TV (CTV) advertising? Connected TV advertising refers to ads shown on internet-enabled TVs through streaming apps and platforms. It combines the impact of television with digital targeting and measurement capabilities. How does non-contextuality affect brand performance on CTV? The content surrounding an ad directly influences how viewers perceive the brand. Ads placed in mismatched or low-quality environments can dilute brand equity, even if viewability is high. How can brands avoid ad fatigue on CTV? By applying frequency capping, rotating creatives, and dynamically optimizing placements, brands can maintain awareness without overwhelming viewers or harming brand perception.

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Brand Safety: How Advertisers Can Avoid Underblocking and Overblocking Ad Placements

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

What if your ads aren’t reaching the people you want, but are still showing up in places you never approved? That’s the hidden problem with keyword overblocking and underblocking. When you overblock, your brand loses visibility in safe and relevant environments, allowing competitors to dominate the spaces you should have owned. When you underblock, your ads risk appearing next to unsafe or irrelevant content, hurting your brand reputation and audience trust. This creates a clear domino effect: lost reach, weaker impact, wasted budgets, and declining brand credibility. And most brands don’t even realize that these issues start with one flawed assumption; that keyword blocking alone can keep their ads safe. In this blog, we break down why keyword blocking as a brand safety strategy is fundamentally limited, what brands really need to understand about ad placement quality, and how they can make better, context-aware decisions. We’ll also explore how mFilterIt’s brand safety solution gives you accurate, real-time visibility and ensures your ads show up exactly where they should, without compromising reach or brand reputation. What is Underblocking and Overblocking of Ad Placements and What Causes Them? Underblocking happens when ads appear next to content that is unsafe, unsuitable, or misaligned with the brand’s image. This includes news about violence, misinformation, hate speech, extremist views, or overly negative content. What causes underblocking of ad placements? Relying only on basic keyword blocklists methods No understanding of page-level meaning, intent, or sentiment Filters that cannot interpret regional languages or cultural context Lack of monitoring of publishers, apps, or channels Limited detection of low-quality or fraudulent environments Overblocking occurs when ads are restricted from being placed next to content that is actually safe, relevant, and appropriate. This reduces delivery scale and prevents ads from reaching potential audiences. What causes overblocking of ad placements? Relying on broad keyword filters One-size-fits-all global safety settings Filters unable to differentiate between informational vs harmful content Blocking entire topics or domains due to a single keyword Misinterpretation of regional or cultural content Consequences of Keyword Overblocking and Underblocking: What Advertisers Miss Many advertisers feel that keyword-based filters are enough to prevent their ads from unsafe placements. This has been their go-to strategy for brand safety. However, this approach leaves huge gaps in the process of brand safety and protection. Keyword systems only catch what they are explicitly asked for, leading to overblocking or underblocking of ad placements in many scenarios. For example, a family-focused FMCG brand’s ad may appear beside a YouTube video with explicit visuals, even though the video title contains harmless keywords. Without visual and sentiment analysis, the placement slips through keyword filters, allowing the ad to run beside inappropriate content that damages brand perception. This is an example of underblocking and here are the consequences underblocking of ad placements leads to: Brand Safety Concerns When ads appear next to harmful or controversial content, consumers may directly associate the brand with negativity. A single unsafe ad placement can trigger brand reputation risks and backlash across social platforms. Exposure to Fraud or Low-Quality Traffic Underblocking often means ads might show up on low-quality MFA websites or spam pages, leading to inflated impressions and wasted spending. Poor Conversion Efficiency Ads may appear in irrelevant or unsafe environments, where users are less likely to engage or convert—driving up CPA and reducing return on ad spend. Compliance & Suitability Failures Regulated industries like BFSI, healthcare, or kids’ categories face stricter content rules. Underblocking increases the risk of ads appearing in restricted categories. Let’s take an example of overblocking. This approach cuts advertisers off from massive amounts of safe, high-quality content. An article with a headline like “Virat Kohli’s cover drive continues to kill it this season” triggers the word ‘kill’ (in the keyword blocklist) even though the tone is celebratory and the content is 100% safe. Yet sports advertisers lose access to one of the most engaged audiences in India. Here are the consequences overblocking of ad placements leads to: Loss of High-Quality Inventory High-quality audiences and impressions on safe and suitable pages are blocked due to overly broad filters, shrinking available inventory. Limited Reach & High Media Costs Campaigns struggle to meet delivery goals because a large number of potential placements are unnecessarily excluded. When inventory is restricted, competition increases. CPMs, CPCs, and CPA all rise, impacting efficiency. Missed Opportunities During festivals, sports events, elections, or national news moments, content volumes surge. Overblocking prevents advertisers from leveraging these high-engagement opportunities. How Advertisers Can Avoid Overblocking and Underblocking of Ad Placements To avoid underblocking and overblocking, advertisers need to leverage advanced brand safety solutions to evaluate each ad placement not just by keywords but by what the content means, what message it communicates, its sentiment, and how it is interpreted in a regional context. Analyse Placements Based on Content Understanding the actual subject of a page (and just matching keywords) helps ensure ads appear in relevant, safe environments. Content-level analysis prevents brands from unintentionally blocking large volumes of safe inventory simply because they contain a certain word, phrase, or product reference. This safeguards scale without compromising suitability. Analyse Placements Based on Context Context determines whether a keyword appears in an informative, neutral, or harmful environment. Contextual targeting helps advertisers distinguish between high-quality content and genuinely unsafe pages. This prevents underblocking on risky pages and overblocking on harmless ones, improving both brand safety and delivery efficiency. Analyse Sentiment to Understand Tone of the Content Sentiment analysis evaluates whether the content is positive, neutral, or negative. Even if the topic is safe, negative sentiment can misalign with brand values. Sentiment filters help advertisers avoid negative associations while still accessing neutral or positive content that offers high engagement potential. Analyse Regional Nuances of the Ad Placements In diverse countries like India, regional content often includes multilingual terms, cultural references, slang, and context-specific meanings. Generic filters miss these nuances, leading to misclassification and misalignment of content. Brand safety solutions with regional intelligence filters help advertisers stay safe across diverse markets while maintaining access to

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Why Addressing Regional Nuances is Critical for Effective Media Brand Safety?

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / Shiraz Noor

When we think about brand safety, the first things that often come to mind are avoiding explicit, harmful, or misleading content. But in reality, the risks can be far more nuanced—especially when advertising across regions with diverse languages, cultures, and contexts. What feels neutral in one market might carry sensitive undertones in another. Take culturally diverse regions like India and MENA. In India, where dozens of languages and dialects coexist, a word that seems harmless in Hindi might have a very different, even offensive, meaning in Tamil or Bengali. In MENA, imagery or references that are acceptable in one country may be viewed as inappropriate or insensitive in another due to local religious or cultural norms. A single oversight can unintentionally shift how audiences perceive your brand. This is why regional nuance matters. Brand safety isn’t just about avoiding the obvious—it’s about ensuring your campaigns respect cultural sensitivities and linguistic differences. Without this lens, even the most well-crafted campaigns can end up in the wrong context, putting brand trust at risk. So, here’s the critical question every advertiser and marketer must ask: Are you confident your ads aren’t being placed next to culturally unsafe, politically charged, or regionally sensitive content? If your answer is “not entirely,” you’re not alone. In this article, we’ll explore: Why addressing regional nuances in brand safety is no longer optional Why markets like India and MENA demand special attention Why generic brand safety solutions fall short How regional intelligence ensures your ads stay relevant, respectful, and truly safe Why Addressing Regional Complexity is the Need of the Hour? India’s digital audience is incredibly diverse, and the demand for vernacular content is growing rapidly. Users are increasingly engaging with videos and posts in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and many other regional languages across YouTube and other social media platforms. In fact, YouTube recorded a 60% surge in regional language viewership between 2017 and 2020. This isn’t a short-lived spike; it reflects a fundamental shift in how people across India consume and connect with digital content. Moreover, in MENA, Arabic dialect content dominates social platforms, OTT, and digital news consumption. This means brands are exposed to risks that go beyond the usual categories of violence, hate speech, or adult content. Regional complexity includes: Slang and satire that generic filters miss. Cultural references tied to festivals, traditions, or taboos. Political undertones embedded in everyday entertainment content. Religious cues that carry heavy meaning in local communities. Audiences today are hyper-aware. They don’t just notice what you advertise; they notice where you advertise. A misplaced ad next to unsafe local content isn’t seen as an accident, it’s seen as a lack of cultural sensitivity. This is why addressing regional complexity isn’t optional anymore, it’s a foundational need to protect brand trust. Why Regions Like MENA and India Demand Specific Attention Brand safety can never be a one-size-fits-all-strategy. MENA and India represent two distinct digital ecosystems. Both offer ample opportunities for brands, but their complexity makes them uniquely challenging when it comes to ensuring brand safety. Generic designed frameworks fall short because they do not account for the linguistic diversity, cultural nuances, and socio-political sensitivities that define these regions. In India: Languages like Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Punjabi come with their own slang and mixed-language usage like Hinglish, etc. Festivals are frequent and deeply cultural, often tied to religion. Associating with the wrong content during these times can backfire rapidly. Politics and religion influence narratives across states during high-stake or emotional times like elections, tragic events, etc. In MENA: Arabic dialects differ widely. Egyptian Arabic is not the same as Gulf Arabic. Religious sensitivities are paramount; even seemingly neutral symbols can be inappropriate in the wrong context. Political undercurrents often blend with news and entertainment content, making context harder to spot without regional awareness. Therefore, with such complexities, audiences in every region expect brands to demonstrate cultural sensitivity, not appear besides offensive narratives. Know more about how brand safety threats are evolving in culturally diverse regions like India, and MENA. The Consequences of Avoiding Regional Contexts When brands avoid regional nuances, the risks are immediate: 1. Consumer backlash: A single screenshot of an ad next to unsafe content can spread across social media in minutes. 2. Loss of credibility: Cultural insensitivity erodes brand integrity, especially in markets where respect is highly valued. 3. Regulatory violations: In tightly controlled industries like banking, healthcare, or politics, the wrong placement can trigger compliance issues. The Gaps in Generic Brand Safety Solutions Most traditional media brand safety tools use a limited set of predefined categories to identify brand safe or unsafe content such as: Adult or explicit content Violence and graphic imagery Hate speech Political or religious extremism While these categories are essential, they represent only a fraction of the risks brands face in culturally diverse regions. These frameworks fail to capture the regional nuances of local language, culture, and context. And as a result, brands unintentionally end up endorsing unsafe content, damaging trust and ROI. Here’s what generic media brand safety tools often miss: Politically charged regional narratives that are highly sensitive during local election cycles. Culturally inappropriate use of colors, symbols, or metaphors, which may have specific religious or social implications. Localized hate speech or community-specific terms, expressed in vernacular languages or dialects outside the scope of English-only keyword lists. Subtle cues in satire, memes, or slang that convey offensive or divisive undertones but are invisible to global classifiers. This not only exposes brands to reputational harm but also creates the perception that they are indirectly funding harmful narratives. Over time, such misplacements erode customer trust and weaken brand credibility in markets where cultural sensitivity is non-negotiable. This is why the industry needs to shift from generic brand safety to regional intelligence. The Shift Toward Regional Intelligence The digital landscape is evolving fast, and brand safety must evolve with it. The shift is clear – from generic filters to regional intelligence. Regional intelligence in brand safety means embedding cultural, linguistic, and contextual

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Brand Safety Beyond Placements: How Full-Funnel Coverage Protects Your Brand

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Think your ad is safe just because it’s viewable? Think again. According to the standards set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) for measuring viewability, for an impression to qualify as a view, at least 50% of the ad must be visible on the screen for a minimum of one second. Based on these criteria, your brand ads might be showing up on premium websites. But are you sure you are driving the genuine audience to your dashboard even after your ads show up – and show up beside those perfect placements? What if 40% of your views are still fraudulent? What if the metrics are still being skewed by the bots? This is the uncomfortable truth: viewability doesn’t equal validity; it does not tell how well an ad is performing as safe-looking environments can still host fake engagement, ad fraud, and brand damage. Ensuring brand safety solution after the ad is served is equally important as ensuring the ad is being served alongside safe and relevant content. This will only happen when marketers start leveraging the right set of technology and brand safety solutions and ask the right questions like – Who saw the ad? Was it even a real person? Did it drive real action? It’s high time that marketers and advertisers get out of the illusion loop. Let’s discuss how. Brand Safety Starts with Smart Placement, But It Can’t End There Brand safety begins the moment your ad is about to be served. However, the concept of brand safety has evolved and so should your strategy. Today, your campaigns don’t just run on websites. They appear across YouTube videos, OTT platforms, in-app environments, gaming platforms, influencer content, and more based on business requirements and individual campaign goals. That means your brand can easily end up next to content that’s contextually inappropriate, emotionally misaligned, or subtly harmful, even if it passes through basic checks or domain filters. That’s where modern AI & ML-based brand safety tools help. These tools don’t just block offensive content; they analyze the tone, sentiment, and contextual relevance of the content around your ad. They ensure your ad doesn’t appear next to misinformation, low-value sensationalism, or emotionally charged material that’s off-brand or reputation-damaging. Whether it’s a pre-roll ad on YouTube, a banner in a news app, or an OTT streaming ad, the emotional environment matters just as much as the content category. But here’s the crucial truth: ensuring safe placement is only the first step. An ad could be placed in a brand-safe, high-relevance environment, but still be viewed by bots, clicked by click farms, or engaged with inorganically. That’s why brand safety must extend beyond placement and viewability metrics to validate what happens after the impression is served. Beyond Safe Placement: Breaking the Illusion Loop with Full-Funnel Protection Now imagine this: Your ad is placed beside high-quality, sentiment-aligned content on YouTube or an OTT app. It gets great viewability. Attention metrics are up. Engagement looks strong. But something is still off. Sales don’t add up. Audience retargeting campaigns underperform. And further analysis reveals: Most views were bot-driven or incentivized traffic Clicks were generated by fraudulent devices or repeat clickers Installs were inflated by click injection and SDK spoofing Even the most brand-safe placement means little if the traffic and conversions aren’t authentic. This is the Illusion Loop – a pattern where campaigns appear successful on the surface, but deeper layers reveal fake engagement, invalid traffic, and misleading performance metrics. And the danger? Marketers trust these metrics and reinvest in the same environments, audience profiles, or creatives, unknowingly feeding back into the fraud loop. That’s why a full-funnel brand safety advertising strategy is as critical as smart placement. Why Brand Safety Requires a Full Funnel Protection Approach? To break the illusion loop of misleading campaign performance, brands must embrace a full-funnel brand safety approach, one that doesn’t stop at placement but verifies every stage of the ad journey, from impression to engagement to conversion. Here’s how it works across the funnel: This end-to-end approach not only ensures brand protection but also restores data integrity, helping marketers make decisions based on authentic engagement, not vanity metrics. Brand Safety as a Performance Enabler The shift to full-funnel validation also reframes the purpose of brand safety. It’s no longer just a way to avoid risk; it’s a way to unlock better campaign performance. When your ads are seen by real people, in the right context, and drive genuine engagement, the benefits ripple across your marketing strategy: Better ROI: Ads reach real people who are more likely to convert. Smarter Optimization: Campaigns scale based on clean, verified signals. Audience Integrity: Retargeting pools stay high-quality and human. Brand Trust: Your ad shows up in the right emotional and contextual environments. When you combine placement integrity, audience authenticity, and conversion validity, the right brand safety strategy becomes a growth lever, not just a checkbox activity. How mFilterIt Powers Full-Funnel Brand Safety Across Channels At mFilterIt, we provide end-to-end brand safety and fraud detection built for multi-platform media – covering web, mobile, YouTube, OTT, and app environments. Here’s how our full funnel brand safety approach helps: Pre-Bid Intelligence Our brand safety solution scans ad environments for context and sentiment, not just category. Blocks unsuitable inventory across OTT, CTV, YouTube, and apps, beyond traditional keyword filters to ensure only safe placements make through the filters. Post-Bid Traffic Validation Detects bots, IVT, data center traffic, and engagement farming across platforms. Applies device fingerprinting and behavioral anomaly detection to spot fake interactions. Conversion & Install Fraud Protection Validates leads, installs, and actions to ensure real outcomes, not just numbers. Protects from click injection, fake installs, and SDK spoofing, especially critical for app campaigns. Campaign Optimization with Deeper Intelligence Identifies and blacklists bot-driven traffic sources Conducts ad placement analysis for contextual and emotional relevance Flags ad delivery issues like frequency capping violations or suspicious delivery patterns on MFA sites Helps brands optimize performance without wasting spend on invalid impressions or misaligned placements, improving media

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Brand Safety in 2025: It’s Not a Checkbox Compliance Anymore for Digital Brands

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Imagine you’re investing in branding ads to be visible among your target users, but instead, your ads are getting placed beside content that harms your brand image. And unknowingly, you’re funding that content, and your users perceive your brand to be associated with this content. Something similar happened during the recent incident of the Pahalgam attack. Many brands’ ads were appearing beside the terrorist attack news, putting them in a negative light. An analysis done by mFilterIt indicates that 7% to 12% of brand safety violations occur in campaigns that do not prioritize curated content platforms. Brands using traditional methods to block brand unsafe ad placements often lack contextual awareness, resulting in either excessive blocking of appropriate content or overlooking potentially harmful placements. Every misplaced ad leads to erosion of brand integrity and credibility, making viewers assume your brand is funding misleading and harmful content digitally. This directly influences the audience’s perception of your brand, and in worst cases boycotting a brand. Therefore, it is more important than ever for advertisers to keep a vigilant check and control over brand placements and brand safety in the digital advertising landscape. So now the question is for advertisers and marketers globally – Are you sure your ads are not appearing next to brand-unsafe content, fake news, conspiracy theories, or any kind of harmful content that might hurt the emotions of your audience? If not, keep reading ahead. In this article, we will explore the new threats hurting brand reputation, why traditional safeguards are no longer enough, why regions like the USA, MENA, and India must embrace a new level of vigilance – brand safety solutions, and how these solutions ensure brand relevancy and contextual targeting. How are Brand Safety threats evolving? Brand safety threats have grown in complexity, driven by automation, evolving content formats, and the unpredictable nature of programmatic ecosystems. 1. AI-generated misinformation and deepfakes The rapid increase in use of generative AI has enabled the creation of hyper-realistic fake content. From synthetic news anchors to manipulated interviews, these deepfakes blur the lines between reality and fiction. When brands are unintentionally associated with such misleading or polarizing content, reputational damage is severe and swift. 2. UGC and influencer-led campaigns With the rise of the creator economy, brands are increasingly promoted in environments they don’t fully control. User-generated content and influencer endorsements can shift tone unpredictably moving from inspiring to controversial in seconds. A misaligned post or unmoderated comment thread can quickly escalate into a brand crisis. 3. Programmatic advertising and algorithmic misplacement While programmatic buying enables scale and efficiency, it often prioritizes impressions over context, which can now be easily manipulated by fraudsters using malicious techniques. This means brands may find themselves appearing next to offensive, misleading, extremist sites, or politically divisive content without ever realizing it until it’s too late. 4. Unsafe YouTube ad placements Despite platform controls, YouTube remains a challenging space for brand safety. Ads can still appear before or within harmful videos, ranging from conspiracy theories to extremist content or inappropriate children’s content disguised as family friendly. This risk of “non-contextual advertising and brand relevancy” remains one of the most visible and publicly damaging threats to brands. 5. M Algorithms M algorithms refer to poorly trained or misaligned algorithms that recommend, rank, or pair with content in unintended ways. For instance, a brand-safe ad could end up placed between two harmful videos due to flawed recommendation logic. These algorithmic failures erode trust and make it harder for brands to control the digital environment in which they appear. 6. Volatile content categories and news cycles Real-time global events, from armed conflicts and political protests to celebrity scandals and financial crises, often drive unpredictable spikes in sensitive content. Without real-time scanning and contextual awareness, brand ads can appear alongside highly charged, emotionally volatile material that damages consumer trust. Why MENA, USA, and India Demand Specific Attention Solving brand safety is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Every region has its own nuances and with each unique requirement, the solution cannot be the same. Similarly, MENA, the USA, and India represent three distinct digital ecosystems each with its own blend of opportunity and risk. Here’s how: MENA: High Sensitivity, Low Moderation Culturally sensitive content: Misplaced ads risk backlash due to religious and societal norms. Volatile news cycles: Frequent political or religious events heighten reputational risks. Under-moderated local platforms: Arabic and regional languages lack strong content controls. Influencer-driven marketing: Widespread but lacks structured brand safety safeguards. USA: Polarization and AI-Powered Misinformation Politically polarized media: Brands risk appearing near divisive or partisan content. Deepfakes and fringe content: Brand ads are increasingly at risk of appearing alongside conspiracy theories, hate speech, or deepfakes. Consumer activism: Both advertisers and publishers face growing pressure to moderate content more effectively and ensure responsible media buying practices. India: Language Diversity and Informal Ecosystems Vernacular content environment: With over 20 officially recognized languages and hundreds of dialects in use, content moderation and contextual understanding must be language-specific. Unregulated affiliate ecosystems and third-party ad networks: Continue to operate without standardized guidelines for ad quality, traffic authenticity, or contextual advertising relevance. Socio-political sensitivities: Content that’s acceptable in one state may be deemed offensive in another, necessitating hyper-local risk assessment. Therefore, for global brands operating across these markets, understanding and adapting solutions addressing regional, cultural, and political sensitivities is no longer optional but a strategic necessity. Why Traditional Brand Safety Solutions Fail to Solve This Gap? With the evolved landscape and the new threats emerging, traditional methods of brand safety like keyword blacklisting have become outdated. Once the gold standard of brand safety falls short in the arena of dynamic formats and unpredictable algorithms. Brands that still rely solely on outdated methods like keyword blacklisting missing real threats entirely because: It Lacks context: A keyword like “violence” might be blocked even when used in a harmless setting (e.g., a film review). This leads to missed opportunities and reduced reach. Over blocking and under blocking: Generic blacklists often over-filter safe content while still allowing

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How a Real Estate Player Secured Its Digital Identity with OSINT-Powered Solution?

Blog, Brand Safety & Suitability / mFilterIt Experts

Imagine this- a consumer goes online to find a real estate project where they can purchase a home. They start their search on a well-known search engine and come across results from some of the most reputed names in the real estate game in the country. They click on one of the sponsored results, look through the website, and shortlist a project that aligns with their needs. This prospect then fills out a contact form which subsequently leads to a call with the builder’s sales team. The salesperson informs the prospect that they will have to pay a small fee as an expression of interest in the project, to reserve their property. To incentivize the prospect, the sales rep even promises to offer them a competitive price that almost seems too good to be true. Considering the opportunity cost of not acting immediately, the prospect makes the expression of interest payment. However, they never receive any confirmation from the builder’s side and are never able to reach the sales rep again. This unsuspecting prospect has just fallen victim to a scam. While this scenario may seem far-fetched to some, it is an unfortunately frequent occurrence in the realm of digital ads and real estate. While the plight of the victim of the scam, the consumer is evident, the builders whose names are used to execute such scams stand to lose a lot more. For the builders, such instances translate into lost revenue, legal issues, and broken customer trust. To further cement the notion that this isn’t a made-up scenario, here’s a case study about one of our clients who was facing a similar predicament, and was able to get out of it with the help of Brand Protection Tool. Let’s find out more about this case: The Challenge: Why Real Estate Brands Are at High Risk Big real estate firms face an enormous yet hidden risk in the online realm. Scammers can employ a number of methods to dupe unwitting consumers while also tarnishing the name of the builder. Some of the most common ways scammers do this are: Fake Property Listings This is perhaps the most common and the easiest way for scammers to steal money from potential customers of real estate firms. Scammers create fake property listings on popular listing websites and use them to lure potential buyers. From this point, depending on how much they are able to influence individual buyers, scammers take money from them in the form of visitation charges to booking amounts for reserving a property for purchase at a later date. Impersonation & Brand Misuse This method is quite similar to the previous one, except with this, scammers are not limited to property listing websites. They may go one step further by creating fake social media profiles or even fake websites under the name of reputable real estate players. Using these, they can once again attract potential buyers and scam them. Intellectual Property Violations Real estate businesses have to publish a variety of documents when advertising a project. Since most such documents, such as floor plans and certificates are available in the public domain, they can be used by scammers to appear authentic in front of potential customers. Besides causing distress to buyers and potential customers, such practices cause a lot of damage to authentic and well-meaning real estate players. Consumers who fall victim to these scams often form the impression that the actual real estate business has tried to outsmart them. While clarification on the subject can change this notion, providing such clarifications to tens of customers every day can prove impractical. In fact, a similar reason is behind the widespread proliferation of such scams. Since it is impossible to manually track every instance of a brand’s name being used by a third party, especially in the case of big brand names, scammers take advantage of volume to outsmart vigilance. The Solution: AI-Powered Brand Protection for Real Estate While manual tracking cannot solve this problem, overcoming this issue is possible. With the Brand monitoring tool, such as the mFilterIt solution, real estate businesses can track and monitor instances of fraud and protect their prospects, customers, and most importantly, their brand image. At mFilterIt, we used the following brand protection features to help our client overcome the dangers of online scams: · Automated Digital Scanning: This feature is designed to detect fake listings, impersonations, and other forms of unauthorized brand usage. The AI-enabled feature does the tracking across platforms, including property listing websites, social media platforms, ad platforms, and even search engine result pages. · ML-Based Categorization: In severe cases, automated digital scanning can uncover hundreds, even thousands of instances of brand impersonation. Dealing with so many cases one by one can take a long time. With Machine Learning (ML) based categorization, mFilterIt helped by identifying and prioritizing high-risk cases for quick takedowns and bulletproof protection. · Confidence Scoring: Confidence Scoring is a feature that assigns a severity score to violations, based on the amount of risk they pose against the brand and its customers and prospects. · Data-Driven Enforcement: All of the data points collected using the previously mentioned features are presented in an easily digestible format on a central dashboard. This dashboard enables smart and quick decision-making, enabling brand managers to monitor their brand protection in real-time. The Results: Real Impact So what did we achieve by helping our client? How big was the problem? Did we manage to solve it? Here are the numbers: Our solution detected 1,177 cases of brand impersonation in the span of just six months. With this data, we took down 905 fake listings and fake social media accounts spread across five different platforms. New fake pages and listings that would pop up on our radar were being removed in an average of 1-2 days. As a result of this exercise, the brand experienced an improvement in its brand reputation and enjoyed enhanced customer trust. Evaluating a Brand Protection Solution for Real Estate Real estate

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