It’s easy to talk about trust as a brand value. It’s harder to recognise just how much it shapes commercial outcomes. The recent ‘Power of Trust’ research from Thinkbox was a timely reminder that trust isn’t just a nice to have but is directly linked to generating profit. It demonstrated that trusted media channels deliver stronger business effects, with TV and newsbrands consistently coming out on top. Trust is becoming an increasingly important commercial advantage. And yet, this isn’t reflected in where brands are actually putting their money.

The Scale of Brand Safety Failures Across Social Platforms

There have been growing concerns over brand safety across social platforms, with recent reporting demonstrating the sheer scale of fraudulent ads now commonplace across platforms like Meta. Meta reportedly generates around 10% of its 2024 revenue from scam and fraudulent ads, with users exposed to 15 billion higher risk ads every single day. Meta also lost its Media Rating Council accreditation back in October after pulling out of its annual audit. This accreditation signals to advertisers that the content their ads sit beside won’t harm the brand. Meta succeeded in earning that seal of approval, only to lose it again just four months later.

These brand safety failures aren’t just abstract statistics. Even one of the UK’s most respected consumer finance experts, ITV’s Martin Lewis, has had to spend years fighting to have his likeness removed from various fraudulent ads across the Meta & Google ecosystems. Despite a libel case and a significant payout by the team at Meta, these ads still persist with ever increasing regularity.

Despite this, analysts maintained that they expected the impact on ad spend would be minimal and, judging by Dentsu’s 2026 media spend projections, this seems spot on. As Mike Proulx, Forrester VP research director puts it:

“While this may raise eyebrows among advertisers, it won’t deter them from investing in Meta due to its sheer audience reach and brand reliance. Brands will overlook potential brand-safety risks as long as their Meta media investments continue to perform.”

Short-Term Metrics vs Long-Term Trust

This gets to the crux of the problem, that advertisers are locked into digital, performance-led platforms, even when trust and brand safety could be compromised. Although channels like TV & Cinema have been proven to build long-lasting mental availability and trust which drives long-term growth, the allure of ‘tangible’ short-term metrics persists.

All of this recent news has led to UK broadcasters reframing TV’s ‘friction’ (Clearcast and Ofcom creative clearance regulations often viewed as barriers) as its greatest competitive advantage. Across social platforms, the aim is to remove friction. In an algorithmic era where engagement is the ultimate goal, this means that harmful or fraudulent content can slip through and even be amplified.

Creative and brand safety should be inextricably linked, yet we often treat them as separate conversations, dealt with by different teams. Agencies are increasingly treating brand safety parameters as non-negotiable elements of any media plan. We’re plugging in Double Verify and building inclusion & exclusion lists, all in the name of safeguarding context. But is there any point to this, when in the same environments, fraudulent creative and scam ads are still able to reach the same audiences? If we’re serious about protecting brands and audiences, creative regulation and brand safety discussions should sit at the same table.

TV’s rigorous clearance process means every ad is checked and verified, protecting both consumers and brands. As Rak Patel of Channel 4 puts it:

“Regulation (…) is the super power of TV.”

Which is further echoed by Rory Sutherland

“Public promises carry more weight: hence why the words ‘as seen on TV’ are more convincing than ‘as seen on Facebook’.”

A Fragmented Video Landscape Needs Universal Standards

In an effort to rebalance the £45bn UK ad market away from big tech dominance, broadcasters are pooling their streaming services to make TV advertising more accessible and more affordable for the SMEs who are currently propping up revenues for the same tech firms.

At the same time, streaming & connected TV buys are driving TV’s predicted YoY overall growth, placing even more importance on ensuring broadcaster TV standards are upheld consistently across all premium video environments.

Right now, FAST and Subscription VOD channels clear creative internally, often by global teams in the US, with no universal ‘TV’ regulatory process. For advertisers, this creates an inconsistent landscape where the rules can shift depending on the platform.

With Netflix, Amazon, and Disney now part of BARB, there is a clear opportunity to bring these players under a more holistic, industry-standard clearance system like Clearcast. This will help maintain TV’s trust advantage and make it easier for brands to re enter or scale within all TV environments. Without these universal standards, advertisers carry extra operational risk, which can become a barrier to investment.

Preserving and growing TV’s regulatory integrity is essential if broadcasters hope to be successful in reclaiming spend from the increasingly unsafe social environments. As more and more premium video platforms enter the market, the challenge isn’t just about competing for attention, it’s about maintaining and upholding the same standards that give TV its trust advantage in the first place.