Integral Ad Science's CEO Lisa Utzschneider and Reddit's COO Jen Wong, In The C Space Studio 2025

Hello, welcome back. You are in the C-Space Studio sponsored by Integral Ad Science. I'm your host, James Kotecki, here at CES 2025. We're speaking with luminaries and thought leaders from marketing, media, branding, and advertising. Joining us now is the CEO of our sponsor, Integral Ad Science, Lisa Utzschneider. Thank you for coming back to the C-Space Studio. And with you is Jen Wong, COO of Reddit. Thank you so much for being at the C-Space Studio for the first time. A warm welcome to you both.

Jen, tell me how Reddit and IAS work together and how you came together.

Lisa, tell me what this brand safety looks like on Reddit, because if someone is new to this conversation, they might say, "Reddit, anyone can say anything there, right?" So how do you ensure that it's a brand-safe environment?

Yeah, Reddit is such an important strategic platform for IAS, and we are thrilled to continue strengthening our partnership with Reddit. As Jen mentioned, today we announced the launch of brand safety and brand suitability on Reddit. You have to look at it this way: when you look at a platform like Reddit with its explosive growth, advertising revenue is a key revenue stream. Advertisers running ads on Reddit want the assurance that their ads appear in an environment that is brand-safe and brand-suitable. We launched our technology, and that's exactly what we're doing now—growing alongside Reddit and their advertiser base.

And Jen, are these the ads—I'm a Reddit user myself, as are surely many of the viewers—are these the ads that appear within the thread itself, looking like Reddit posts and marked as sponsored posts?

Exactly, that's where the real treasure lies. Is that also part of it, based on Reddit's ability to signal this, because people on Reddit naturally upvote or downvote things? So I could imagine that's part of the equation: if something gets downvoted en masse, that could be a signal that it might not be a brand-safe place.

Interesting. Lisa, congratulations on this announcement with Reddit. What general trends are you seeing as we head into 2025? What are some things you'd like to tell the industry to focus on?

Yes, in addition to announcing our continued partnership with Reddit through the launch of brand safety and suitability, today we also announced the launch of Total Media Performance. You can think of this as an evolution of IAS's solutions. Our company has been around for 15 years. We are leaders in global measurement and optimization, offering solutions like viewability measurement, invalid traffic detection, and brand safety and suitability to ensure brands and publishers operate in a transparent environment. We help brands achieve greater efficiency. We are now evolving toward performance, and that's a big theme you'll hear from IAS this year: helping brands, platforms, and publishers achieve more performance and efficiency, while simultaneously ensuring the environment remains brand-safe and brand-suitable for brands.