NEW YORK, USA – Havas Media Group has announced that they have become a member of the Conscious Advertising Network (CAN). Launched in 2019, the Conscious Advertising Network is a UK-based voluntary coalition of over 70 organisations set up to ensure that industry ethics catches up with the technology of modern advertising.
The CAN has established best practice manifestos in six key areas: Anti Ad-Fraud, Informed Consent, Diversity, Fake News, Hate Speech and Children’s Wellbeing. The manifestos enable and encourage brands, agencies and adtech companies to make conscious decisions around how they operate and the content they produce. The ambition is that the widespread adoption of these manifestos will produce communication that is better for all, and more effective.
Havas Media Group has pledged full commitment to these six manifestos and kicked off ten internal initiatives to embed the principles of the CAN manifestos into all work created across the global network. These initiatives include developing specific processes at each stage of Mx, Havas Media Group’s operating system, to ensure DE&I considerations are intentionally and properly implemented in all of the agency’s work. Havas Media Group is also launching an initiative for a more inclusive approach to brand safety. Rigid brand safety policies lead to certain publishers, disproportionately from minority groups, being cut off from revenue sources for being deemed as “unsafe” e.g. as much as 75% of brand safe LGBTQIA+ related content is blocked due to keyword lists. The initiative will develop more nuanced measures to correctly identify and block unsafe content and hate speech, while ensuring definitions of “unsafe” do not have discriminatory consequences.
Global CEO Peter Mears remarks: “Joining the Conscious Advertising Network is a natural extension of our agency group mission to ‘make a meaningful difference to brands, business and people’. The CAN is a great initiative and we fully support their manifestos – as a global Media Agency Group we have to uphold the highest standards of ethics, diversity, equality and inclusion in the work we do, and joining the CAN is just one step we are taking to become more accountable.”
Harriet Kingaby, Co-chair at The Conscious Advertising Network remarks: “Now more than ever, it is critical for the advertising industry to come together and fight harmful content and misinformation from being spread in online environments. Advertising funds the internet, and with this power comes great responsibility. Brands and advertisers can and must do more. We’re extremely pleased to welcome Havas Media Group to The Conscious Advertising Network, in doing so, taking a vital step to encourage a greater consideration of ethics within advertising and ensuring industry ethics catches up to the technology of modern advertising.”
