Brand safety commonly refers to advertising and content adjacency in the digital space. And while that is a vital component for protecting a brand’s reputation, digital content adjacency isn’t the only adjacency that threatens a brand. Forrester’s 2024 B2B Brand And Communications Survey suggests we’ve reached a new tipping point, with 58% of B2B marketing leaders now saying their organization has a view of brand safety that goes well beyond advertising and includes how they form partnerships, choose suppliers, and make business decisions.

A Broader View Of Brand Safety

Companies’ reputations don’t just exist online and through their digital activities; they exist across every experience throughout the business ecosystem. Marketers should look at brand safety through the lens of associations and engagements, considering the ways that suppliers, partners, vendors, customers, and others cohabitate with different content, organizations, groups, and individuals. We have to ensure that our ecosystem’s beliefs, behaviors, and values are not antithetical to our brand purpose and values.

Building And Preserving Trust

Brand safety is fundamentally about building and preserving trust. Trust is built through positive experiences that inform audiences of the brand’s values and promise. Research from Forrester’s Business Trust Survey, 2023, shows that trust in one brand can extend to its affiliated brands (a concept Forrester calls “trust transference”). In fact, 74% of global business buyers in our survey say that they are likely to trust a company affiliated with a trusted brand, compared to 42% who would trust a company affiliated with an untrusted brand. Buyers are also more likely to recommend, forgive, and do business with companies affiliated with brands that they trust.

The Domino Effect Of Reputational Damage

When crisis strikes one brand, the fallout can impact associated brands, as well. Consider how last year’s CrowdStrike outage, which caused widespread disruptions and was crowned the biggest IT outage in history, manifested as the blue screen of death for millions of Microsoft Windows devices. Not only was the Microsoft brand affected, but the ripple effect continued as countless companies including airlines, hospitals, banks, and retailers suffered crippling disruptions, all creating negative brand experiences.

Think about the companies with which your brand does business. Do their beliefs and behaviors align with your brand values? What reputational risks might exist in these relationships? As marketing and brand leaders, if you aren’t exploring these questions with the executive team, then your brand is likely at risk.

Expanding The Definition Of Brand Safety

B2B companies must expand their definition of brand safety to include all aspects of their business relationships and initiatives to effectively protect their brands. The new definition for brand safety is safeguarding a brand’s reputation, ensuring that it minimizes harmful associations while consistently building favorable perceptions. To secure your brand’s reputation under this broader perspective, be sure to:

  • Scrutinize partner, vendor, and customer relationships. The actions and reputations of partners, suppliers, vendors, and customers can directly impact your brand. The goal is to choose wisely. Recognize the level of alignment with your brand values, the amount of control you have in the relationship or initiative, the reward potential, and the risks.
  • Be attentive to the pressures that impact brand safety. Growth and competitive pressures, socioeconomic and political shifts, regulatory environments, and technological advancements all influence brand safety decisions. Be sure to consider diverse cultural sensitivities, varying legal regulations, and shifting political and social values, as well as the layers of complexity these issues have on brand safety. Companies must stay vigilant and adaptable, and marketers must bring these pressures to the attention of executives and advocate for the brand.
  • Build a strong brand. A solid reputation isn’t just good for growing the business; it’s vital for brand resilience. Trusted brands are more likely to be forgiven for product/service mistakes and for behaving out of step with their values. When a crisis occurs, you want your brand to be in the trusted category to ensure that you can regain good standing with greater ease.
  • Prepare a crisis communication plan. Regardless of how carefully a business approaches brand safety, it can’t control everything. There will always be some level of risk. Evaluate the risks and work with legal, executives, and other leaders to build crisis communication plans in case you should ever need to quickly address a crisis to preserve the brand reputation.

Brand safety isn’t something to be taken for granted, and preserving it takes continual vigilance. Join me as I dive deeper into this topic at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America, happening March 31–April 3 in Phoenix. My session “Understanding The New Threats To Brand Safety” will explore strategies to help you safeguard your brand and enhance brand reputation despite threats.

Hope to see you there!