The firm’s new system reports fewer violations and improved engagement after implementing automated filtering, classification and refreshed video exclusion lists
A consumer-products company operating in the Philippines sought to improve the suitability of its advertising placements on TikTok, where the volume and pace of user-generated video can make it difficult to prevent ads from appearing near content that does not meet a brand’s standards.
On 2 September 2026, PepsiCo Philippines announced it had introduced automated pre-bid suitability controls for its TikTok campaigns. The approach was intended to reduce unsuitable ad placements without disrupting campaign delivery or requiring marketing teams to continually maintain exclusion lists manually.
The firm needed to balance audience reach with controls over the environments in which its advertisements appeared. Conventional post-campaign measurement can identify unsuitable placements after ads have run, whereas the company required a method of filtering placements before media bids were submitted. It also needed controls that could keep pace with a rapidly changing content inventory. The implementation used involved:
- Pre-bid video exclusion controls to block advertising bids against video content classified as unsuitable
- Automated content classification to evaluate TikTok videos against defined brand-suitability criteria
- Exclusion lists containing up to 200,000 video identifiers, refreshed automatically every three hours
- Post-bid measurement to provide visibility into delivered placements and suitability outcomes
- Combined inventory filtering and video-level exclusions to apply broader and more targeted controls
PepsiCo Philippines has reported that campaigns using the pre-bid controls recorded up to 2.4 times fewer brand-suitability violations than campaigns without them. It also reported 15% to 30% higher engagement and video-completion rates when platform-level inventory filtering was used alongside the video exclusion lists.
The firm’s Asia head of media, digital and investments, Harjyot Singh, said: “Maintaining brand integrity while reaching consumers at scale is critical to our digital strategy…” and added that the controls provided a “reliable, automated way to reduce suitability risks” while allowing campaigns to continue operating at scale.
Conrad Tallariti, Managing Director (Asia), DoubleVerify, the firm that supported PepsiCo’s campaign, said the implementation enabled advertisers to “proactively limit unsuitable content” before ads are served.
