Naver raises the advertisement inspection standards. The purpose is to block content beforehand that can provoke social controversies such as misogyny and misandry.
Starting this month, Naver has partially raised its performance-based display advertisement (Glad for Advertiser: GFA) inspection standards. According to Naver, the GFA advertisement standards were raised for following contents △men and women-related functional food and general food △men and women-related underwear related content △COVID-19 and vaccinerelated content△women and men-related derogatory content.
Naver explained, “Given that client complaints about sexuality and social issues continue to occur recently, we are raising some of the inspection standards, and there may be restriction on the contents of advertisements that were previously acceptable.”
The main reason Naver raised the GFA advertisement inspection standards is that there are many outside personnel such as advertisers and partners who use this marketing tool. GFA is a targeting advertising product where Naver uses artificial intelligence (AI) and big data and other technologies. It is a flagship product that takes up about 20% of Naver's ad sales and has continued to expand sales after COVID-19 outbreak.
This advertisement product charges according to the number of clicks and is known to be favorably used by small and medium-sized businesses because it is cheaper than the exposure guarantee type. There are over 10,000 advertisers using Naver GFA as of January this year. There are more than 80 partners that produce and execute advertisements.
Naver's measure is interpreted as a way to prevent companies from incurring major damage from failing to control contents of the advertising materials.
GS Retail recently suffered major damage with a poster with an image of a ‘pinching hand', which is suspected of misandry. The spread of boycott due to the controversy caused dismissalof the relevant employees and President Yoonsung Cho was also given disciplinary action, including the resignation of his concurrent duties. Manho Cho, the founder and the CEO of Musinsa, the largest online select shop in Korea, resigned from his position due to a recent image of pinching gesture.
Naver and Kakao, the largest Internet companies in Korea, are also not free from this controversy. Some clients recently issued problems by finding the image of a pinching hand gesture in Kakao Bank's promotional materials and some banner ads on Naver. Kakao Bank eventually apologized and stated, "We will pay more attention to the inspection."
An industry official said, "Regardless of the intentions, companies that have to post external content such as advertisements on their platforms are in a difficult situation as they are caught up in this gender hate controversy. We have no choice but to raise the inspection standards and manage them with care.”
By Staff Reporter Siso Kim (siso@etnews.com)