AI-Powered Metric Quantifies Level of Personal Attacks in Podcast Content, Producing a Comprehensive Brand Suitability Measurement, While Creating New Opportunities for Advertisers

VIENNA, VA, July 13, 2023 — Seekr, a revolutionary artificial intelligence company specializing in transparent content evaluation, and Oxford Road, the leading independent ad agency in audio, today announced the launch of the first-ever Civility Score for podcasts. Seekr’s Civility Score harnesses proprietary AI to offer brand marketers a highly actionable way to measure brand suitability in podcast advertising, maximizing brand affinity and return on investment.

“As the marketplace becomes more open to objective, third-party assessments of media content, the Civility Score provides brands with a simple-to-understand and extraordinarily effective way to protect themselves from high-risk content,” said Pat Condo, CEO and Founder of Seekr Technologies. “It is a tool designed to move beyond the traditional brand safety and suitability frameworks and strike at the heart of the polarization problem.”

Seekr’s Civility Score will use AI to objectively measure the volume and intensity of personal attacks within the nation’s top podcasts – a key contributor to societal polarization and aggression. Brands can use the detailed scoring to guide their media planning, setting tolerance levels that maintain brand integrity and minimize exposure to potentially damaging content. Specifically, key features of the Civility Score include:

• Civility Rating: Seekr scores podcasts from low to high civility based on the level of personal attack in each show, factoring in context and nuance when presence of an attack is found.
• Risk Trends: Seekr tracks civility trends to allow brands to adjust their media spend accordingly and align with quality content.
• Detailed Metrics: Seekr provides metrics on the amount and nature of personal attacks found in evaluated show content per hour, giving brands detailed data to speed up the evaluation process.

The Civility Score scans podcast episodes in their entirety, enabling it to spot instances of personal attacks that occur at any point in a program, so brands can avoid getting caught in the crossfire. This also identifies instances where topics of discussion may not be inherently controversial and therefore not covered by GARM’s 12-point Brand Safety Floor and Suitability Framework.

“We’re proud to have partnered with tech firms in the past to bring content evaluation solutions to the audio space,” said Dan Granger, CEO and Founder of Oxford Road. “Still, what the industry needs most is one metric that transcends subjectivity and promotes a value around which we can all align: respect for others. The strength of the Civility Score is its simplicity, as all brands, consumers, and creators can align around this expression of the Golden Rule. Now, we can reward the most responsible voices, rather than those that are simply the loudest.”

As part of today’s announcement, Seekr released Civility Score ratings for the top ten non-exclusive U.S. podcasts, as compiled by Edison Research.

The launch of the Civility Score will take place at the Chief Audio Officer Summit, an event that brings together marketers from the leading brands advertising in audio. Initially, the Civility Score will focus on podcasts, with plans to expand its scope to provide broader applications in all forms of media.

For further information or custom solutions, visit www.seekr.com.

About Seekr Technologies Inc.

Seekr is a privately held artificial intelligence company that specializes in transparent content evaluation and objective ratings. Its AI technology is designed to rate all content, both authentic content created by humans, and synthetic, machine-generated content. Seekr empowers user choice and control by streamlining access to reliable information. The centerpiece of Seekr’s technology is an independent search engine that is powered by proprietary AI and employs natural language processing (NLP) to generate a Seekr Score and Political Lean Indicator. Seekr is committed to building a web that people can trust by giving everyone access to technology that makes it easy to find reliable content in context.

About Oxford Road

Oxford Road is the leading independent buyer of audio media, including Podcasts, Radio, Streaming, and Smart Speakers. Their expertise reaches millions daily. With a focus on innovation and advanced data management, Oxford Road found success in helping over a dozen DTC brands scale their customer acquisition strategies from startups to valuations exceeding $1 billion. Today Oxford Road works with Global Brands and fast-growth tech companies alike. Recognized as thought leaders by publications such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Adweek, Ad Age, and more, Oxford Road continues to drive growth and positive change for the industry while serving as a leading voice for the industry through its weekly newsletter, The Influencer, White Papers, Conferences, and their podcast, The Media Roundtable. Oxford Road stands by its motto, “Influence Responsibly.”