Mantis, a leading brand safety, suitability, and contextual advertising solutions provider for publishers and advertisers, revealed that agencies using traditional keyword blocklists omit more than half (56%) of Oscar-related content, leading brands and publishers to miss out on relevant ad inventory, revenue, and highly engaged audiences.

According to Mantis' findings, agency master blocklists flagged 3,161 Oscar-related pages as potentially problematic, representing 258,568 page views and a substantial 56% block rate, while Mantis’ AI-powered natural language understanding (NLU) and contextual targeting solutions dramatically reduced these numbers to 964 blocked pages, accounting for 114,231 page views and a 24.75% block rate. 

The research identified that reviews for Oscar-nominated films like "Emilia Pérez" contain references to ‘drug cartels’, while positive reviews for major releases like "It Ends With Us" include terms such as 'death' and 'abuse' when discussing the film's themes. Other films nominated in this year's Oscars, such as The Brutalist, The Six Triple Eight, and Porcelain War could also have review articles with a positive sentiment blocked due to themes of war. This blocking issue even extends to franchise names like "Star Wars," "Thor," and "The Walking Dead," all of which appear on agency master blocklists despite being major entertainment properties.

Blockbuster films will often have significant marketing budgets aimed at attracting positive journalist reviews that are read by high-quality audiences. The nuance of these reviews and plot descriptions can lead to them being unnecessarily blocked from advertising, despite being entertainment content that is largely suitable for reaching target audiences, and generating revenue for publishers and advertisers without posing brand safety issues.

"With nearly half of consumers considering the Oscars a reliable indicator of the best movies and performances of the past year, brands are missing crucial opportunities to connect with engaged audiences during a peak period of entertainment interest," said Fiona Salmon, managing director at Mantis. "Film reviews and awards coverage naturally include terminology that describes plot elements or historical contexts—this doesn't make them unsuitable for advertising. Agencies need to adopt approaches that can distinguish between genuinely problematic content and perfectly brand-suitable film discussion."

Mantis

Mantis is a leading brand safety and contextual advertising solutions provider for publishers and advertisers. Launched in 2019 initially as part of Reach PLC, the Mantis suite of solutions create an efficient, more transparent advertising ecosystem ...

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