The countdown to ATS London is on, and Guy Jones of premium partners The Goodnet dropped by to discuss sustainability…

Sustainability in media has gone a bit quiet recently. As political headwinds push brands to tone down public 'purpose' messaging, Guy Jones of The GoodNet argues the underlying commitment to responsible media buying is, if anything, deepening. 

In this Q&A, Jones makes the case for reframing sustainability not as a moral talking point but as a performance signal, one that sits alongside attention and quality without being reducible to either. He unpacks why 'premium' inventory is meaningless without context, how The GoodNet measures quality across content, carbon, compliance and community, and what it will take for sustainability data to become a default line item in every media plan, not just values-led ones.

Has brand appetite for sustainability cooled since the US political shift, or just gone quiet?

Not every brand is the same. While some have used the current climate as a reason to pull back on prior sustainability commitments, we see plenty who have maintained or even increased their activity. What’s changed most obviously is the amount of noise they make about it. There are many examples of brands where the substance of what they are doing is unchanged, but they simply change the language, or shout less loudly.

But the reality is that the handful of noisy ‘purpose’ campaigns have always been a thin slice of what sustainability in media really means. It’s far more important that brands bake sustainable and responsible practices in across their approaches more broadly.

Four years ago, there was a huge amount of talk about sustainability. Now, despite the political headwinds, we see far more action. That in itself is a strong data point for the importance that many brands, across multiple sectors, place on the subject.

What's the ROI case you make to a buyer who still treats sustainability data as a vanity metric?

We need to talk about value, not virtue. It’s clear that the moral argument for sustainability isn’t enough for many people in our industry. Fortunately, the ROI case is compelling and clear.

Sustainability data is a criminally underused performance signal that encompasses brand suitability, efficiency, delivery, user experience and much more. At The GoodNet, we’ve seen, across hundreds of campaigns and billions of impressions, that optimising towards sustainability signals really does drive clear and tangible outcomes, ranging from brand lift to CPA. 

The crucial point is that the signals are used intelligently within campaign delivery, not treated as a compliance metric after the fact. That’s what drives the value.

Attention and quality are being bundled together in this debate. How much do they actually overlap, and what gets lost if buyers measure one as a proxy for the other?

The broader question is whether we think attention, quality and responsibility should be used to move the needle on existing media metrics, or whether they are a replacement for them. Put another way, do you optimise towards a quality score because it increases your CTR or because it’s an inherently superior way of measuring success? 

I would put attention, quality and responsibility/sustainability into a venn diagram. There are of course areas of overlap, for example low ad density would often imply quality, sustainability and attention, but many other areas of uniqueness. Ultimately, we need to configure campaigns towards the signals and metrics that individual brands value, and that most closely reflect real-world outcomes. Defining what a specific brand wants, and using the right signals and insights to deliver it, is a superior approach to saying that ‘X’ can always act as a proxy for ‘Y’.

Within that mix I’d argue that sustainability data is uniquely broad in scope, encompassing myriad signals, driving real outcomes, and providing valuable insight not available through a pure quality lens.

What's the biggest misconception buyers have about what 'quality' media actually means?

That quality is absolute rather than contingent on a buyer’s requirements and objectives.  For example, a full-page takeover on a lifestyle title is quality inventory for a luxury brand and poor inventory for a supermarket chasing reach. The same placement, opposite value. 

That’s why designations like ‘premium publisher’ are no longer as useful as they once were. Our approach is to measure over 100 signals across four dimensions of Content, Carbon, Compliance and Community. Not every one of those dimensions is important to every brand, but if we understand a buyer’s objectives upfront we can leverage the right signals to drive the right outcome.

What would it take for ethical/sustainability data to become a standard line item in every media plan, not just values-led ones? Is that the best way to tackle this?

If sustainability is treated as being only for ‘purpose’ campaigns, or as a carved-out line item then it will always run the risk of being cut in favour of the new shiny thing. 

Sustainability data should be standard across media plans because it earns its place. If it’s treated as an optimisation signal, rather than carbon accounting, then it becomes a vital input to delivering the outcomes the client needs.

The good news is that this is happening in places. Several of our agency partners are successfully building sustainability signals as standard into their tech stacks, with a view to bedding it into every media plan.

The barrier that needs to be overcome is our industry’s perception that sustainability is somehow harder, costlier, or a tax on performance. That’s simply not the case. The data supports the idea that a vastly broader set of campaigns would see improved performance by factoring in sustainability data across the buy.

It’s about value, not virtue, and the value case is clear. We need to keep making it.

See The Goodnet speak at ATS London - final tickets available now