Watch out Big Ad Tech. The folks most famous for publicly shaming ad-tech firms and advertisers who may have inadvertently funded disinformation and fake news are expanding their work.

Claire Atkin and Nandini Jammi, cofounders of Check My Ads and authors of the newsletter Branded, are starting a nonprofit. Named the Check My Ads Institute, they’re calling it the industry’s “first independent watchdog.” The institute will be able to accept funds from supporters of its work and apply for research grants.

That money, they say, would be used to hire researchers and editorial staff, allowing for even deeper investigations into the dark and murky world of ad tech, marking a continuation of the work that’s already been published on their Twitter accounts and in Branded.

Some no-background: Many advertisers use brand-safety technology to avoid running their ads next to articles and content that could be deemed controversial, avoiding spice like someone with bad heartburn. It’s why keyword blocking lists let brands stop their ads from appearing within content that includes terms like “Covid-19” or “Donald Trump,” for example, even though this practice has been shown to hurt legitimate news outlets.

• And yet, because of programmatic advertising, ads from blue-chip brands can still end up on the deepest dredges of the internet, appearing alongside misinformation, conspiracy theories, and other assorted horrors. Check My Ads tries to help brands avoid showing up in these places.

Some of Branded’s highlights include:

• Partnering with journalists to call out companies like OpenWeb and LiveIntent as well as advertisers like Warby Parker, whose ads appeared on the Daily Wire.
• Getting Steve Bannon temporarily banned from companies like online marketplace Redbubble and email platform SendGrid.
• Explaining how Breitbart was still making money from advertisers, even ones that don’t want to be there.

Since June 2020, Check My Ads has offered consulting services, speaking with nearly 200 different advertising and marketing teams about their ad strategy and best practices to avoid sites of ill repute. Their work involves hosting workshops on understanding brand safety and devising “brand safety guidelines” for marketers. But fewer than 40 of these teams paid Check My Ads for its services.

Check My Ads declined to provide their rate and their revenue, but said they are not starting the nonprofit due to a lack of funds from clients. “We were doing fine,” Atkin told Marketing Brew. They’ll continue offering consulting work, in addition to operating the nonprofit arm (legally, they will be two separate entities).

For a $10 monthly donation, supporters will be called Check Mates (get it?), gaining access to Atkin and Jammi through private Zoom calls that will dive into the nitty-gritty of the work and research process. The Branded newsletter has roughly 8,000 subscribers, and they expect between 10% and 30% to become paying supporters of the new nonprofit.

“The real goal is to continue working in public; that’s where the real change is happening. Create that public accountability that helps accelerate the results we’re looking for. We can’t have the same level of impact working privately with clients,” Jammi told us.

Click here to read more about the nonprofit, including who’s on its board of directors.—RB

There’s one social media platform that’s been all over the news lately. Say it with me folks: Pinterest. Not the answer you were expecting? Catch up on news about a sosh meeds company that wasn’t started by a 19-year-old below.

The PayPal drama: Last week, the interweb was abuzz with talk about the possibility of PayPal acquiring Pinterest. But PayPal reportedly changed its mind after shareholders “balked” at a $40+ billion deal, according to the WSJ.

Now they always say accreditation: The Media Rating Council (MRC) recently said Pinterest’s “display Pin impressions” and “display Pin clicks” metrics are up to industry snuff, officially giving the platform its accreditation. That basically means “advertisers can now feel more confident that the data they get from Pinterest is reflective of real people engaging with their Pins and Pin ads,” per Social Media Today. But earlier this year, Pinterest’s video metrics didn’t pass the MRC’s smell test.

Made you some content: Pinterest hired an ex-Google guru, aka YouTube’s VP of content partnerships Malik Ducard. He’s exiting the streamer in favor of becoming Pinterest’s first chief content officer.

Why it matters: According to eMarketer, Pinterest has 91.1 million US monthly active users, making it the third most popular social network in the country, just behind Instagram (118.9 million) and Facebook (179.5 million). Snapchat trails behind Pinterest in fourth place at 87.3 million. Pinterest’s revenue grew 125% year over year to $613 million in Q2.—PB

Nielsen wants to let college athletic programs put a number on their marketing potential as student athletes explore their newfound ability to seek brand deals.

The company on Tuesday announced a rating system for college teams to evaluate how well they can help their athletes benefit from the NCAA’s new name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules.

Dubbed the Nielsen Impact Score (NIS), the rating system is based on three variables that Nielsen will evaluate in an athletic program: national TV exposure, local market impact, and social media engagement.

• “This database allows universities to quantify the inherent value a program can provide to prospective student-athletes using metrics similar to those a brand would consider when evaluating sports marketing partnerships,” the company said in an announcement.
  
• Schools can then, in theory, show off their Nielsen score to prospective athletes interested in pursuing endorsement deals.

The NIS is initially available to about 100 NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams, “with plans to roll out broader across more collegiate sports,” the company said. The Duke University men’s basketball team is the first to sign on.

Zoom out: When the NCAA decided this summer to let athletes monetize their NIL, the ruling opened the gates for athletes to be influencers, and brands have been exploring ways to partner with them. To adapt, college athletic programs have been working with talent agencies or taking on that role themselves, according to Ad Age.—ZS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Attention: Yeah, yeah, we know you need Gen Z audiences. Here’s a guide to reaching younger audiences in their “natural habitat,” aka online.

Impressions: Go organic—here are five tips for capturing earned media, you know, the good stuff.

Templates: No need to start your social planning from scratch. Here are 13 social media calendars, templates, and tools from HubSpot.

Funnel fix: Inbound leads slip through the cracks more often than they should. With Distro by Chili Piper, you can route leads instantly to the right rep and distribute them fairly and accurately. Fix your funnel with Chili Piper today.*

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Stat: US consumers will spend $10.14 billion on Halloween products this year, according to the National Retail Federation. We assume it’s all going toward full-sized Snickers and 12-foot skeletons.

Quote: “Oatmeal is as relevant as ever,” Kristin Kroepfl, VP and CMO of Quaker North America, told Adweek. Quaker is launching a new campaign with former NFL athletes.

Read: Location data company Huq was collecting GPS data even when people opted out, according to a Motherboard investigation.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Are Cooler Screens the fridge of the future?
• A roundup of the biggest Facebook news in Q3
• Instagram announces Collabs