The news: The ad industry’s obsession with cheap reach has damaged consumer trust—and now advertisers are paying the price, Mozilla SVP of strategy and operations Suba Vasudevan told EMARKETER at Web Summit.

• In her view, trust is no longer a “soft” concept but a measurable performance factor. Brands are prioritizing safety, transparency, and control over scale, and Mozilla’s pitch for Firefox Ads—which places sponsored shortcuts, sponsored stories, and advertisements on the New Tab page—builds directly on that idea: Clean, privacy-forward environments are both ethical and commercially effective.
• When asked about reports of Meta’s $16 billion scam-ad problem, Vasudevan—who left Meta two years ago—didn’t address the company directly but used the moment to stress why trust is now non-negotiable for advertisers. Incidents like this, she said, show how “trust once lost is really not given back,” and why marketers need confidence in a platform’s measurement and safety standards.
• Firefox users make an intentional choice, she said, and “trust us to not creep around behind them.” Mozilla doesn’t track browsing histories or use behavioral targeting; it offers a clean, brand-safe feed built for high-quality engagement. That’s why, she argued, scandals elsewhere only strengthen the case for transparent, privacy-first environments where user and advertiser expectations actually align.

Why it matters: Vasudevan’s point about some advertisers backing away from lesser-quality inventory is backed by data. Advertiser Perceptions found that 41% of US marketers are cutting spend with media companies over safety and suitability concerns.

• That anxiety is especially sharp in social environments: 53% of US marketers said social media will pose the biggest brand-safety challenges in the next year, per Integral Ad Science—more than any other channel. The issue isn’t just harmful adjacency; it’s the reputational risk of appearing in opaque, high-volume ecosystems that users increasingly distrust.
• Advertisers are responding with their wallets. New ANA data shows the average US programmatic CPM more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, signaling a shift toward premium, brand-safe inventory. The open web may be smaller than the walled gardens, but it’s becoming more valuable per impression thanks to cleaner environments and greater control.
• However, Vasudevan’s optimism has limits. Pixability’s latest survey puts brand safety only mid-tier (4.5 out of 5) among YouTube campaign priorities—ranking behind performance, reporting, and efficiency. Many agencies still see safety as necessary but not decisive, exposing a gap between what marketers say they value and how they actually spend.

Key takeaway for marketers: The data partially supports Vasudevan’s view that advertisers are clearly shifting toward quality and safety, but they’re not yet ready to trade efficiency for it wholesale. Marketers want both—the reassurance of trust and the returns of performance.

That tension defines the next phase of digital advertising. The market is rewarding premium, privacy-respecting environments, yet cost pressures keep brands tethered to platforms with scale and risk. For advertisers, the challenge is to balance the two: Invest where trust amplifies performance, not where it’s treated as a compliance checkbox.