Cannes 2023: Bradley Hunter, Global Head of Brand Safety and Industry Relations, TikTok

Hey, Rob here, and we're doing the news live from Canada. And I'm so lucky to have Bradley Hunter, who is Global Head of Brand Safety and Industry Relations at TikTok. Hey, Bradley.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. Great setting.

Great to be here. Yeah, awesome. And awesome going— always good to hang out.

Yes.

Totally. Always good to hang out. What are you having fun in Cannes so far?

Yeah, having a blast. This is my first Cannes. Amazing. But I am trying to take it all in, seeing some stuff on the main stage. TikTok has a really unique presence that I have to call out that is fantastic. It's at the Carlton. So hopefully you all can join and just really soaking it in, soaking up the sun. And then the content is really inspiring. So yeah, it's great to be here.

Great. And I can't wait to get over to TikTok and see what you guys have going on. And yeah, I mean, the weather's been good. It's a little windy, But, but it's beautiful to be here and the energy is really good. I think 100%. I mean, just everybody's here to do business and to work. And so it's, it's, it's, it's inspiring.

Great vibes.

So we're here, we're here talking about the news and obviously we do a lot of talks about brand safety as a concept. And as that brand safety is evolving, we think about like a larger conversation called digital safety, which encompasses even more than that. One of the things that we've been starting to talk about, continue to talk about here, is we talk amongst ourselves in the industry a lot. Platforms talking to platforms, talking to brands, talking to agencies, talking to publishers, et cetera. When is it time to take this conversation to the consumer? So the question is, is it now time to do it? And what are some of the things you're thinking about, if it is, to take the conversation broader than the industry?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, at TikTok, we have coined this Beyond Brand Safety. And so we're broadening the conversation outside of just the historical conversations that we've had around brand safety, around adjacency, but also to new audiences, to the consumer as well. And so when we think about that, we think about a few ways that we're doing that. One is the way that we're expanding the conversation around youth safety and well-being. And we're making sure that we are communicating this out not just to the businesses, not just advertising agencies and brands, but also broadly to consumers. And so youth safety and well-being has been a focus of ours for a good while now. We spoke about it at last year's Brand Safety Summit in November in New York. But what we're really, really trying to do is create a safe and positive environment for all of our community. And so with youth safety and well-being, to double-click in that, We have expanded out our efforts in that. So making sure that there's age-appropriate design, age-appropriate experiences for the youth, that is for 13 to 17 audience, making sure that there is a 60-minute limit, time limit on those that are under 18. And then making sure that there are messages to remind them to take a break, right? There should be messages for us to take a break beyond 18 as well. And so, These are all ways that we're trying to speak to the consumer and educate them on the opportunities that they have to create the suitable experience for them on the platform. To also speak about a really important update, and that is our community guidelines. So community guidelines have historically been written in a way that is very much aligned with a specific audience— brands, agencies, researchers potentially— but now we're really trying to broaden that out so that it's available to the wider community, in layman's terms. And so they can really understand what is and isn't allowed to be created on the platform. And so we've changed the way in which we have created those. And it's been our most robust changes to our community guidelines. So we hope those are very digestible for the community.

Yeah, I mean, you have such a massive audience, right? And people love TikTok. I mean, they love it as a platform.

We hope they do.

They do. I mean, people love it. What's the, what's the community response been to some of these feature changes? Can you, can you talk about that a little bit about like feedback you've gotten from, from the public?

Yeah, I mean, they're relatively new, these changes, so they're since March, but that is one thing we'd love to hear from this audience is feedback. We, we hope they really are digestible. We hope that they are creating this opportunity to inspire creativity and bring joy for everyone on our platform and to make sure that it's safe and suitable suitable for everyone on the platform. So they are new, so please bring the feedback to us, and excited for, for what's to come.

So you just mentioned the word suitability, and obviously that's an important word, one of the two— safety suitability. So '22, '23, we're in, you know, we're halfway through. Is 2023 the year of brand safety or brand suitability?

So Brand safety is the foundation for everything that we do, right? So the, the collaboration we've had with you all, with Garmin, with other industry organizations, has really helped us get to a place where we feel like we have created a platform that we hope is, is setting strong benchmarks and strong products and policies around safety. Suitability is, is a topic that we are very leaned into, and we have been creating our own proprietary solutions like our inventory filter, which launched in July of 2022, now available in 40+ countries, 40 countries now, which is phenomenal. And then also partnering with really, really valuable measurement partners. So Zephyr, IAS, DoubleVerify are all examples of us not measuring ourselves, but not grading our own homework, but allowing them to really do that to prove out that we're walking the walk. We're not just talking the talk. And so my thought is that really, the year of, it's the year of suitability every year, right? So 2022, 2023, 2024, we're looking to the industry for feedback on where we can improve, where we can innovate, and continue to expand in the suitability because, you know, I was hearing about it earlier from partners that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to suitability. What is valuable for one, what are the values of one brand or one agency, are never the same. And so, and the risk tolerances are never the same. And so we want to make sure that we have suitability solutions that will morph and change based on the brand.

Yeah, got it, got it. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you. Thank you for, for being a leader. It's, you know, being a platform in today's market, not always easy. Uh, you know, a lot of people are asking questions always, but being out there and being a leader and being on top of conversation. Thank you. You've been doing a great job, and appreciate working with you.

Well, thank you for the platform. Thank you for always creating really valuable conversations for us to be a part of, and for really convening the industry. It's super important.

Thank you. Thank you. That's the news. Thank you.