36 Billion Shoes

Since Richard Reid's failed 2001 "shoe bomb" plot, more than 36 billion pairs of shoes have been removed by U.S. travellers during airport security screenings. This ritual has persisted for over two decades.

This stark disconnect, where vigilant rituals persist despite an absence of genuine ongoing risk, is an apt metaphor for the world of modern brand safety: expensive, burdensome, and performative, yet ineffective.

Brand safety vendors capitalise on the fear of "what-if" scenarios—making clients believe that absence of an incident means effectiveness. But absence of evidence is not evidence of protection, and the truth is that the vast majority of blocked impressions never would have generated brand harm.

Brand Safety is more theatre than reality.

70% of advertisers rank brand safety as a top priority, according to Business Insider reporting. Between 45–65% say they've encountered ad placements near unsafe content. And yet, studies—from both academic and proprietary sources—consistently show that such misplacements rarely damage brand perception. A joint investigation by Stagwell, involving thousands of panelists in the U.K. and U.S., found no significant negative impact from ad adjacency. Critically, ads aligned with incendiary or even extremist content almost never triggered lasting harm.

Still, the brand safety sector has ballooned into a multibillion-dollar industry, feeding on fear and risk-aversion. Major vendors like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) reported combined full-year 2024 revenues exceeding $1.2 billion—with DV reaching $656.8million and IAS $530million in global sales.

Most of this revenue stems not from averting measurable damage but from blocking impressions deemed "potentially unsafe"—an effort that often sacrifices valuable reach, limits creative placement, and generates no identifiable ROI.

This commodification of safety pivots on fear as currency:

Sounds familiar? It's a lot like TSA's model: create a threat, then charge for the ritual.

In early 2017, brands including Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo paused YouTube advertising amid revelations that ads were appearing on extremist or inappropriate content. P&G slashed its site footprint by 69%, banned ads from YouTube entirely, and kept major partners like Walmart sidelined for months.

What happened? No measurable brand damage emerged from the controversy, while competitors who continued investing in digital and CTV channels grew market share, and P&G's retreat inadvertently stunted its audience reach, while others surged ahead.

By late 2018, P&G quietly returned to YouTube—but with a nuanced strategy. Advertisements were limited to an approved list of 10,000 vetted channels, down from a platform universe of three million. The lesson: perfection isn't protection. Effective brand safety is less about shielding from every conceivable risk, and more about targeted intelligence.

Reliance on vendor-led safety is akin to trusting security theatre to keep you safe. The superior alternative is strategic risk-taking informed by quantitative rigour. Instead, here's a realigned framework to make better decisions with facts and not fears:

Brands that shift from theatrical safety to calculated tolerance are reaping rewards. They are accessing untapped inventory that most blocklists exclude, they are building deeper partnerships with premium platforms—not avoidant relationships driven by fear and they are reallocating budgets, redirected from symbolic-blocking to growth-driving advertising.

When P&G stepped back, competitors didn't suffer—they gained audience share . This isn't conjecture, it's documented market movement.

Public scrutiny is mounting—particularly regarding brand safety's unintended consequences on political content.

A recent Business Insider report highlights how brands and agencies are increasingly shifting from "safety" to "suitability"—seeking more nuanced placement decisions rather than outright blocks. The Omnicom-IPG merger was approved by the FTC on the condition that the agencies avoid collusion to politically blacklist publishers, signalling regulatory concern over ideological bias in brand blocking.

Meanwhile, conservative media platforms—like The Daily Wire and Fox News—are seeing resurging advertiser interest as major agencies seek "politically neutral" targeting approaches. Yet news publishers as a category still draw only 1–2% of global ad spend. The wider takeaway: as brand safety becomes politicised, sellers are refining contextual nuance and tonal calibration—not just blocking based on keywords or content categories.

Advanced AI-driven tools promise a more surgical, context-aware approach to safety. Startups like Mobian are pioneering sentiment analysis and real-time performance feedback. Stagwell is partnering with The Trade Desk to build a politically neutral news marketplace, enabling demographics and brand-suitability-based buying without ideological bias.

Yet the industry remains wary—companies like GARM have come under regulatory pressure for corner-cutting or collusion. The prevailing sentiment? Transparency, not tactics, must lead the next wave of brand safety innovation.

Brand safety is valid—but brand safety theatre is not. It's time to shift away from empty rituals and toward frameworks that:

The true brand risk isn't a passing Snapchat or X post—it's surrendering reach and resilience while competitors plot forward.

Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 10 July 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.