IPG chief Michael Roth remains hopeful that brand safety crisis will be solved
At the 4A’s Transformation conference in Los Angeles, IPG’s chief executive Michael Roth told attendees that he thinks clients, not agencies, should determine whether or not to boycott YouTube in light of the brand safety crisis that’s caused brands like Johnson & Johnson and AT&T to suspend advertising on the video platform.
At the 4A's Transformation conference, IPG's Michael Roth spoke with CNBC's Julia Boorstin about the brand safety crisis
Roth said that he thinks making a uniform decision for all clients on the matter is “inappropriate,” which is the approach Havas has taken in the UK. However, unlike WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell, who recently told CNBC that the boycott “doesn’t make sense,” Roth said that he can understand why some clients have chosen to pull spend from Google and YouTube.
“The key to communicating with consumers as a brand is to have a high standard, and brand reputation is critical,” he said. “To the extent your communication is being associated with something that’s offensive, obviously that’s not the way to build brand loyalty. The best way to get publishers and individuals to respond is to use money to basically effect change."
In the meantime, Roth said that IPG is working with both clients and Google to ensure that the issue gets solved. He also noted that he thinks Google is working “very hard” to resolve the problem and that he believes the holding company will eventually get to a point where it will be “comfortable again to work with our clients to again utilize YouTube and Google Display.”
“It’s a very important medium and it has great impact and it’s something that we want to make sure we solve,” he said.