Navigating Brand Safety During the 2024 Election

Amid the 2024 U.S. election cycle, brands face unprecedented challenges to safeguard their reputation. The current political landscape has created a spike in social media activity, where heightened political opinions will likely reach brands’ platforms. Brands must implement vigilant strategies to steer clear of potential pitfalls on social media. This article will help brands understand the critical importance of brand safety during election seasons by outlining essential strategies to address the unique challenges that this U.S. election will bring.

What Brands Need to Know About Political Advertising in 2024

With new regulations and emerging trends, the evolving environment of political advertising presents both challenges and opportunities. These changes drastically define how brands handle strategy and safety on social media during the 2024 election. As political advertising can shape public opinion, for better or worse, brands must understand how to navigate this dynamic environment successfully.

Regulatory changes 

The increased transparency requirements (new regulations) mandate higher transparency in political ads, clearer disclosures of funding sources, and stricter reporting on ad spending. For brands, this means a clearer understanding of the origins and expenditures of political advertising in the social media landscape. 

As for platform-specific rules, Facebook and Instagram have updated their policies to include a more strict overview of political ads, such as identity verification for advertisers, to ensure compliance with the new regulations. These measures aim to enhance transparency, protect personal data, and ensure the integrity of political advertising across social media platforms.

Emerging platform trends

New trends are shaping the current election landscape, from programming advertising that allows more targeted and efficient ad placement, to data-driven campaigns that personalize messages and reach specific audience demographics. Cross-media strategies enable advertisers to successfully use a mix of social media platforms, traditional media, and emerging platforms like Snapchat, to engage with a broader audience. 

These emerging trends mean that political advertisers can reach voters and tailor their messages more efficiently, saturating the social media ad market even more. As for brands with no political affiliations, they can use these advanced advertising techniques to make their marketing campaigns more efficient, even in the saturated advertising market that is this election season. Non-political brands can also take advantage of these trends to navigate the political election as safely as possible.

Influence on brand strategy

Election season highly impacts brand’s safety as brands must ensure ads do not appear alongside controversial, and potentially misleading political content. Strategies should be tailored to brand profile, as not all brands present the same level of risk of association with political topics.

Low-risk brands

For brands that don’t typically post about politics or avoid this type of content, it’s best to maintain this stance. Low-risk brands shouldn’t start posting about politics now. These brands should exercise minor caution, monitor overall sentiment, and be prepared to pause or adjust content if necessary. They should keep an eye on audience conversations via social listening and be ready to make changes as needed.

At-risk brands

Brands that have been associated with hot political topics — unwillingly — are considered more ‘at risk,’ and should consider ‘going grey’ during peak political race weeks to avoid being further associated. This means pausing all creative content and proactive engagement on all platforms. Instead, their resources should be directed toward customer service or customer care. These brands should exercise significant caution and increase monitoring and social listening while preparing a crisis management plan.

Social Media Challenges Brands Face in the 2024 Election Cycle 

The 2024 election cycle presents new challenges for brands that require careful social media management to avoid negative associations and reputational damage. By understanding these challenges, brands can develop the right strategies to navigate the complex social media landscape.

Increased risk of brand association with polarizing political issues

Brands face higher risks of association with controversial or misleading content in the 2024 election than throughout any other period. During such a polarized climate, brands must ensure their advertisements do not appear alongside inappropriate content to maintain their brand integrity. Associations can lead to backlash from consumers who may disagree with the political stance or content that appears alongside the brand ads. Brands can be strategic in their ad placement by avoiding certain platforms or types of content that are known for being controversial during election season.

Misinformation and deepfake technology 

Deepfake technologies use AI tools to create realistic, but fake images, videos, or audios. Those technologies present major concerns and risks for spreading misinformation, private information violations, and potential security risk threats. Misinformation and deepfake technologies can mislead consumers by creating and disseminating false information that could inadvertently damage brands associated with such content. Brand vigilance is key to taking action on any misinformation that could impact their image quickly.

Competition for ad space and rising costs 

During election cycles advertising competition is high. The rise of political ad spending drives costs up and makes it harder for non-political advertisements to secure prime ad spots without significantly increasing their marketing budgets. Crowded ad space can dilute the effectiveness of any brand campaign message. Brands must be creative and strategic in their marketing approach to remain impactful, visible, and effective in such a crowded and expensive ad environment.

Best Practices for Protecting Your Brand Online During Political Campaigns 

Brands can implement actionable social media strategies to mitigate risks and ensure brand safety throughout the political season. Here are our top six best practices for the 2024 election season.

1. Implement real-time monitoring and crisis management

Social media monitoring can help brands detect and address any potential threats on social media before they escalate. As a proactive approach, brand monitoring helps manage crises quickly and effectively, from comments and tweets to forums and online reviews management. Brands should implement a crisis management plan to ensure their team can respond quickly and know how to take action appropriately if any issues arise.

2. Establish clear brand safety guidelines

Guidelines prevent social media ads from appearing near controversial or polarizing content. During such a politically charged time, creating and enforcing those guidelines is crucial to maintaining brand integrity and consumer trust. Guidelines should highlight clear criteria for ad placement, such as the safe environment where ads can appear, as well as controversial and polarizing platforms or content to avoid. Brands should regularly review and update their brand safety guidelines to adapt to the evolving political environment and social media policies. 

3. Leverage AI and machine learning for threat detection

AI tools and machine learning can help brands identify risks such as deepfakes and misinformation before they cause reputation harm. These tools analyze vast amounts of data (videos, texts, and images) to detect potential false information. Brands should also consider integrating social listening tools into their AI and machine learning threat detection strategy. Social listening enhances threat detection by monitoring conversations across social media platforms and identifying sentiment and emerging trends. This additional tool enhances brands’ ability to protect themselves against online threats.

4. Adopt contextual targeting over demographic targeting

Contextual ad targeting helps brands avoid placing ads near potentially sensitive content on social media platforms. This strategy ensures that brand ads are shown in a relevant and safe context to reduce the risk of negative associations. Contextual targeting focuses on the content, rather than audience demographics to improve ad relevance and engagement while protecting brand reputation. On the other hand, brands that want to avoid posting during Election Week can publish an ‘evergreen’ post at the end of October that they keep at the top of their feed. This strategy greatly reduces any association or targeting risks associated with the political environment.

5. Diversify media spend across platforms with strict political ad regulations

In such a political environment, brands should allocate their ad spend across social media platforms that regulate political ads. For example, Facebook implemented policies that restrict political ads on its platforms during the election period (from October 20 to November 5). Those measures promote transparency and legitimacy, reducing misinformation risks. 

For brands, a diversification strategy reduces exposure to political messaging and maintains a neutral brand image. This safe diversification still helps reach a broader audience, while minimizing the risk of associations with controversial content. Brands should keep in mind that some platforms like X can present brand safety concerns as conflicting narratives can spread rapidly, while short-form content platforms like TikTok can push election-related trends viral quickly.

6. Engage in transparent communication with your audience

Transparent communication reinforces brand values and neutrality. During politically charged times, this practice builds trust amongst the brand audience without dividing the audience. Brands should update their audience on their brand stance and action while being open to their audience’s feedback. If political discussions happen on their platforms, brands should know that it’s acceptable. As free speech is a large component of American politics, those conversations don’t need to be put down. However, brands have the right to take action if discussions become heated by hiding or deleting comments (hiding is preferable). This strategy helps foster positive relationships with customers and the online community.

Stay Ahead of Political Risks: Partner with ICUC for Brand Safety

ICUC expert brand safety solutions help brands stay ahead of political risks by protecting their reputation and online presence. For a deeper understanding of brand safety management during the 2024 elections, download our U.S. Elections Online Moderation Guide or schedule a call with us.