As a major advertising publication covering Facebook, we often ask whether brands will leave the platform over the latest scandal: the Cambridge Analytica data leak, inflated video metrics or its do-nothing approach on President Donald Trump’s incendiary posts.
Facebook holds a commanding presence in the digital marketing space. It not only owns the second-largest slice of the digital ad pie, according to eMarketer, but marketers frequently say it’s the most affordable and effective way to target people online. Simply put, it’s hard to quit.
Major brands have been joining the boycott every day for about a week, putting pressure on Facebook to root out hate speech and misinformation by average users and world leaders alike.
Calls for boycotting Facebook are nothing new—Tesla, Sonos and Mozilla, among others, briefly left or ceased advertising on Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.
And even with Stop Hate for Profit, media buyers and consultants seemed mostly unconvinced it would be any different.
Jed Meyer, previously predicted ad dollars wouldn’t move from Facebook, a platform with broad reach and scale. Saying:
These factors haven’t changed in the past few weeks—but the context has, as more and more advertisers weigh those benefits against the ramifications of broader cultural conversation around Facebook.
To read the article in full on AdWeek, click here.
First featured 26/06/2020.
