How Nine Stones Wrote a Brand Suitability White Paper for Meta

Nine Stones began working with Meta in summer 2021, when Meta invited it to join its marketing supplier programme. Joining meant the team passing the Meta Certified Creative Strategy Professional exam. Meta then asked Nine Stones to ghostwrite a 1,000-word article for The Drum on how artificial intelligence is helping to measure creative effectiveness in marketing. Meta's marketing science partner on the piece said she was "very happy with the end results". An internal presentation on content marketing in the metaverse followed, along with an external thought leadership piece on creativity in the metaverse.

The Challenge

The largest project was a white paper on brand safety and suitability. Meta wanted to take a definitive stance on brand suitability, how to protect it and how it differs from brand safety, on a subject that means different things to different people. Scoped at 3,000 words and two weeks, the paper soon grew: it had to go beyond basic definitions, and teams across Meta would review it. It needed to:

• Position Meta as a thought leader on brand suitability
• Explain to agencies and advertisers how suitability differs from safety
• Highlight Meta's work with industry groups such as GARM
• Clarify Meta's policies on context adjacency
• Showcase Meta's advertiser controls and third-party verification tools

The Approach

Nine Stones followed its usual white paper process:

1. Stakeholder debrief. A detailed call with Meta's project stakeholders to understand their vision and priorities.
2. Expert interviews. Interviews with Meta's subject matter experts to capture first-hand knowledge.
3. Outlines. Three detailed outlines, refining the structure and narrative until they matched Meta's objectives.
4. Writing and revision. Once the outline was approved, the full paper.

The Outcome

The finished white paper ran to 5,000 words and set out Meta's position on brand suitability, and how it differs from brand safety, for agencies and advertisers.