Brand safety is BS (until it’s not)

At the recent MarTech conference, I hosted a live coffee chat with Dave Minifie, CMO at Terakeet, about brand safety — what it means, what it definitely doesn’t and why so many marketers still get it wrong.

For context, Terakeet is an online brand management partner focused on owned asset optimization, building long-term digital equity across a brand’s owned platforms. Put simply, they don’t rent attention through ads. They help brands own the conversation. 

When Minifie talks about brand safety, he’s not spinning PR. He deals in reality — helping brands steer clear of the digital disasters that come from chasing reach at the expense of trust.

Brand safety = BS? Yep — and that’s the point

Let’s break it down. The Holy Trinity of BS:

• Bullsh*t – What happens when you confuse tactics with purpose?
• Brand safety – Your reputation’s smoke detector. Better install it before the house burns down.
• Brand strategy – The thing you should probably nail before firing up a PowerPoint deck titled “Q3 TikTok Plan.”

It isn’t about damage control.  It’s leadership. It’s marketing with a spine.

Your brand’s reputation is now a machine-learned output

AI doesn’t hallucinate. It reflects. (OK, fine — it does hallucinate. But that’s a story for another time.)

If you’re not actively telling your brand’s story online, AI will fill in the blanks — for better or worse. It’ll scrape Reddit threads, old Glassdoor reviews and that tweet you wish you’d deleted in 2016.

“Where’s the only place people always tell the truth? The search bar,” Minifie said.

Google is your brand manager now. ChatGPT is your PR intern. And they’re both working off whatever data they can find. If you’re not feeding them high-quality, intent-driven content, don’t act surprised when generative search hands back “Why this company sucks.”

That’s not an algorithm problem. That’s a strategy problem.

Dig deeper: How to balance ROAS, brand safety and suitability in social media advertising

Your strongest brand advocates are already on the payroll

Let’s talk about the people who already carry your logo — your employees, your execs, your leadership team. If they’re not talking about your brand online, the message is loud and clear: “We’re either not proud, aligned or trusted.”

And why should anyone else if your internal team doesn’t feel safe or empowered to speak up about your brand? As Minifie said, “One of the worst things you can do is encourage everybody not to talk.”

It happens all the time — especially after a crisis. The knee-jerk response?

• Pull executive bios.
• Scrub LinkedIn profiles.
• Freeze comms across the board. 

Act like the company just entered the witness protection program.

But here’s the truth: People don’t trust companies. They trust people. They always have.

Remember when Apple was on the ropes in the ’90s? The company was 90 days from bankruptcy in 1997. But when Steve Jobs returned, Apple’s stock surged 33% in a single day — before any new product, just believing in a trusted leader.

People didn’t rally behind a spreadsheet. They rallied behind a person. The leader was the brand.

That dynamic hasn’t changed — if anything, it’s intensified. About 70% of employees trust “my employer’s CEO” more than government leaders, media or NGOs, per the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer. And 63% of consumers say they buy or advocate for brands based on a CEO’s stance on societal issues.

Need a newer example?

Look at Patagonia. When founder Yvon Chouinard gave away the entire company to fight climate change, the story dominated headlines — not because of a product launch but because of a leadership decision rooted in values. The brand’s trust score spiked globally and earned media reached over a billion impressions in days.

Why? People trust people more than press releases. When a leader speaks with purpose, the brand becomes unforgettable.

From bathrooms to brand safety

When Minifie joined P&G, one of his first assignments was to launch a sampling program for Charmin Ultra.

There was just one issue: Every past attempt had failed. Coupons were ignored. Mail-in samples were forgettable. Even full-size rolls didn’t work — because once the wrapper was gone, the product looked like every other roll on the shelf.

“Even when people liked it, they didn’t connect it back to the brand. There was no retention, no recall,” Minifie explained.

Instead of repeating the same formula, the team asked:

• Where is someone most likely to care about the quality of their toilet paper?

Answer: Right when they need it.

Rather than push more samples into people’s homes, they went to the Ohio State Fair, known for big crowds — and terrible bathrooms.

They didn’t just sponsor a booth. They fully renovated the restrooms:

• Charmin Ultra in every stall.
• Safeguard soap and Bounty paper towels.
• Aromatherapy and on-brand signage.
• Daily cleaning staff on site.

The result?

• People who used the Charmin restrooms stayed at the fair seven hours on average.
• Those who didn’t? Just four hours.
• Press coverage happened organically.
• Retail sales lifted significantly in the Columbus market afterward.

No crisis. No damage control. Just preemptive brand-building in a space most brands would never even consider.

It wasn’t pitched as “brand safety.” But that’s what it was.

Charmin didn’t wait for backlash to an event. They invested ahead of the risk by embedding the brand into an experience that earned goodwill, built memory and insulated against negative perception.

“It taught me early on that brand protection doesn’t happen after a crisis. It happens when you consistently show up in the right way — even in unexpected places.”

— Dave Minifie

Charmin’s succeeded because they:

• Anticipated a reputational gap (no one expects quality TP at a fair).
• Engineered an experience for it.
• Controlled the narrative before anyone else could write it for them.

That’s not a campaign. That’s brand insulation. 

That’s scalable, proactive brand safety — before anything goes sideways.

“If your brand doesn’t show up with consistency, quality and purpose online, then you don’t own your reputation,” Minifie said. “You’ve outsourced it — to your worst critic, competitor or algorithm.”

Dig deeper: 7 ways to boost customers’ emotional connection and loyalty with your brand

Proactive brand safety checklist

Stop reacting. Start protecting your brand — on your terms.

1. Start with a real insight

• Have you identified a real-world tension your brand can solve?
• Are you solving a human problem, not just a marketing problem?
• Is this insight rooted in behavior, not assumptions?

People don’t remember your product from a sample — but they remember comfort in an unexpected place.

2. Audit your context, not just your channels

• Are you showing up where people care about your category?
• Are there underutilized environments where your brand could show up differently?
• Are you just “being seen,” or are you being relevant when it matters?

Charmin didn’t need more media spend — they needed a better setting.

3. Design the experience, not just the asset

• Is your brand physically or digitally present in a way people notice and remember?
• Are you crafting a multi-sensory or emotionally resonant brand moment?
• Does the experience reinforce your values without a sales pitch?

People didn’t need to be told Charmin was soft — they felt, smelled and saw it.

4. Create metrics that matter

• Are you measuring behavioral impact, not just impressions?
• Are you tracking dwell time, repeat exposure or organic buzz?
• Are you using performance data to shape future brand protection strategies?

Time at the fair increased from four to seven hours. Sales rose. That’s impact.

5. Build brand equity before you need it

• Are you building trust ahead of a potential issue?
• Have you created positive brand memories that act as reputation insurance?
• Are you publishing, activating and showing up deliberately — not just reactively?

Brand safety happens when you’ve already earned goodwill before the storm.

6. Ensure strategic fit

• Does the brand activation support your core positioning and promise?
• Would your competitors be unable to pull it off authentically?
• Are all touchpoints — paid, owned, earned and shared — telling a unified story?

Charmin’s activation worked because it fit who they were: comfort, cleanliness, care.

7. Get buy-in across the org

• Do employees, execs and stakeholders understand the “why”?
• Are teams encouraged to advocate for the brand publicly?
• Are you avoiding fear-based decisions that silence visibility?

Hiding bios, pausing posts or going dark = panic. Show up and own it.

If your brand activation disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice — or miss it? If not, you’re not building brand safety. You’re building noise.