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Unilever threatens to pull its ads from Facebook and Google over 'toxic content'
- fishcolorbrick 9y agoI guess I get it - but how do you measure when the toxicity level falls low enough? What is the LD50 of a social network?
- bfrog 9y agoSince its entirely user provided, I don't think its going to ever be.
- gervase 9y agoDoes this imply that user-provided content is fundamentally incompatible with an ad-funded model? There seems to be massive inertia on both sides: advertisers don't want to be placed next to user-provided content, and users want to pay for content via ad views. I wonder which is easier to change?
- Piskvorrr 9y agoI also guess I get it - is the parent referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster ...?
- notacoward 9y agoConsidering Unilever's own mis-steps in well known territory, they seem pretty intolerant of others' struggles with the less known.
- zapita 9y agoThis is excellent. Hopefully other mainstream brands will follow suit. Once this issue hurts Google and Facebook enough that analysts start asking about it at earnings calls, we'll start to see some change. The only other avenue I see for meaningful change is proper enforcement of anti-trust laws, but the odds of that happening inthe current administration are probably zero.
- ralusek 9y agoHow is it excellent? For one, the standard by which content is determined to be toxic is based off of basically nothing. Take for example The Rubin Report on YouTube, which is constantly demonetized for simply facilitating discussions between intellectuals from across the political spectrum. Ben Shapiro, an orthodox Jew who is an outspoken opponent of racism and the alt-right, was accused of white supremacy by these same groups claiming toxicity. Advertisers determining what is and is not morally toxic by whatever standards are currently being employed is not exactly a step in the right direction. Unilever exists at upper echelons of a free market that even most libertarians would begin asking for a semblance of regulations. To think that this is an attempt at anything other than capitalizing off of social trends in order to lower advertising costs or simply to cultivate easy social good will would be foolish.
- renlo 9y agoAlthough I agree with your message, how is Ben Shapiro an 'opponent of [...] the alt-right'?
- ralusek 9y agoAs the other commenter mentioned, the alt-right is to some extent an advocacy for white supremacy and white nationalism. It comfortably falls into the spectrum of the identity politics, as well supporting authoritarian strategies (nationalist border and trade policies). Ben Shapiro is mostly a classical liberal with personal conservative beliefs. Anti-authoritarian, focus on individual identities and universal policy.
- pukerz 9y agoBecause in online circles, the 'alt-right' has basically become synonymous with white nationalism, advocacy for an ethnostate and/or belief in a Jewish conspiracy. Ben Shapiro is in opposition to those views.
- mehrdadn 9y ago> Last year, Unilever spent nearly $9.5 billion marketing its brands, including Dove, Lipton, Axe and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Holy cow, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Dove soap, Lipton tea, and Axe fragrance are all brands owned by the same company?!
- kps 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unilever_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unilever_brands
- adventured 9y agoOh that's nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Procter_%26_Gamble_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Procter_%26_Gamble_bra... (includes kraft + mondelez on the page) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kraft_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kraft_brands
- mehrdadn 9y agoThe surprise factor here for me was the market variety, not the mere number of brands. I knew about Kraft and Nestle making lots of edibles I see around, but never would I have guessed that the same companies would make soap and fragrances etc. (But maybe if I went through the full list of Kraft and Nestle I'd find the same surprise there, I have no idea... these lists are definitely long. :P)
- frandroid 9y agoThese companies see all of these goods as being part of the same category: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fastmoving-consumer-goods-fmcg.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fastmoving-consumer-goo... Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) > These are consumer goods products that sell quickly at relatively low cost – items such as milk, gum, fruit and vegetables, toilet paper, soda, beer and over-the-counter drugs like aspirin.
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoStory title is not accurate. Actual headline is: Giant advertiser Unilever threatens to pull its ads from Facebook and Google over 'toxic content' They haven't committed to it yet, they're in talks with Facebook, Google, etc. Also, their entire digital ad budget is $2.4B, but not all that went to Facebook and Google, which the title implies. Probably majority did, as they make up like 65% of the digital ad market, but not all.
- bloaf 9y agoBig companies ask themselves "how can we lower our advertising prices?" and come up with the idea of claiming that their ad-buying decisions hinge on aspects of the advertising platform that will be very expensive to fix. In addition, they'll look social conscious for having the same complaints that their target audience does.
- robryan 9y agoYeah, they have nowhere else to take this ad spend. They can't risk being left behind by getting rid of digital advertising.
- dang 9y agoThanks, fixed above.
- niftich 9y agoTop advertiser Procter & Gamble, competitor to Unilever and likewise an owner of many distinct brands, has been very vocal about the sorry state of digital advertising [1], threatening to drastically cut spending [2] on ad networks that made it difficult to gauge ROI. When in 2017 they cut spending on Facebook [2], they noticed no corresponding drop in sales, leading them to conclude that the spending they cut was probably ineffective to begin with [3][4]. [1] http://adage.com/article/media/p-g-s-pritchard-calls-digital-grow-up-new-rules/307742/ http://adage.com/article/media/p-g-s-pritchard-calls-digital... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949 https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face... [3] https://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2017/07/28/pg-cuts-100m-in-digital-adspend-sees-no-business-impact/ https://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2017/07/28/pg-cuts-100m-in-d... [4] https://wolfstreet.com/2017/07/28/procter-gamble-slashed-digital-ad-spending-what-happened-next/ https://wolfstreet.com/2017/07/28/procter-gamble-slashed-dig...
- randyrand 9y agoOn top of that, I'd wager most people don't very strongly weight a Youtube advertiser with the video it's played before. At least not me.
- i_feel_great 9y agoI weigh those ads very negatively. Looking at you, Grammarly. Seriously, why do they play the same ad over and over again, one after the other, to the same viewer? What with all that AI and machine learning and deep neural networks, they can't tell the same session has been served that same ad 50,000 times already?
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoHaha, this made me laugh. It’s humorous that we’re living in a period where a vocal group of critics declares that ML, AI, and incredible amounts of data and tracking are being leveraged to push ads at me so skillfully and subtly that I’m helpless to resist. Meanwhile, like you said, I’m served the same handful of annoying ads over and over, for products I’d never consider buying. Where are all the ads for stuff that’s so desirable and targeted to me that I just can’t resist purchasing them?? Not saying that critics of advertising have no valid claims, but the juxtaposition is funny.
- Laforet 9y agoHave we finally hit the Minski Moment of online advertising predicted[0] several years back? I really doubt that corporations would care much about what is going on with these platforms as long as their ads yield steady returns. However if this wasn't the case then things will get ugly fast. [0]:http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm#fatads http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm#fatads P.S. My own view of the whole YouTube adpocalypse thing is that it had little to do with controversial content but more to do with how ineffective those ad placements had been overall. Is today's media landscape so messed up that nobody is able to monetise properly?
- Laforet 9y agoSomething interesting is going on here because I've never had a sourced comment downvoted so quickly without a reply. If someone is panicking then chances are I might be right.
- bloaf 9y agoI am willing to bet that companies have a reasonably good handle on the returns from their advertising spending. I suspect they have no better than guesses as to why those returns change over time, or what might improve the returns. That brief "ad-blockers are immoral" campaign was probably the result of a few advertising committees deciding that some downward trend was caused by ad-blocking. This is more of the same. The companies are never going to come out and say "we're not making good enough ads," they're going to blame the platforms they're advertising on. That will put pressure on the platforms to lower prices, and in this case, serve as a kind of corporate virtue signalling by pretending to be concerned about social issues.
- Laforet 9y agoIndeed, though I am worried that advertisers and platforms will take a long time to find equilibrium again (and minor players may be priced out of the market). When the first ad exodus from YouTube happened, a lot of us thought that it would take them about 6 months to renegotiate and things would be back to normal. Well, it did not happen and we have only seen more exits since.
- jtwebman 9y agoNice cheaper ads for me then :)
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoThe company behind the Axe ads is complaining about sexism? The whole Axe ad campaign is about objectifying women to sell stuff to young men.
- dannyw 9y agoDon’t see why you’re being downvoted. You are exactly correct, unless they changed their advertising practices.
- Steeeve 9y agoThe company behind the Axe ads is also the company behind Dove advertising. Different brands, different markets. Complaining about facebook is a way to get free advertising for all of it.
- beedogs 9y agoThey spent about 10 billion dollars on advertising last year; I don't think their angle here is "free advertising". Stop being so cynical.
- rhys91 9y agoIf you actually look at their ads over the past year, you'll notice a very dramatic shift in tone towards women. A notable example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WySfa7x5q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WySfa7x5q0
- gypsy_boots 9y agoI find it hard to believe that Unilever really ‘cares’ about any of these issues so I’m chalking this up to virtue signaling. Really just seems like posturing more than anything
- scottmf 9y agoI find it hard to believe you “care” either way so I’m chalking this up to edgelord signaling.
- slig 9y agoThey don't, really. See any of the ads of Axe which is owned by them.
- mistercow 9y agoIt could also be virtue signaling as a smoke screen for something related, but less prosocial. The article used the word "divisive" in its first sentence, and while that doesn't appear to be Unilever's word, it might be more accurate than the words Unilever used. I don't see them caring about the actual issues, but I can certainly imagine them caring about boycotts. And making ad-supported content "less divisive" does seem like a good way to avoid those.
- nitwit005 9y agoPresumably they're making noise to get them to improve price, quality or both. Or possibly hoping that companies elsewhere will approach them with other offers.
- revelation 9y agoThey are complaining about "toxic content directed at children". We are talking about the worlds biggest ice cream manufacturer, they own brands like Lipton who make billions from sugar water with ads like these Muppet animations targeted at children gulping it straight from the bottle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8n-BF5lrnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8n-BF5lrnQ Once those kids are fat teenagers, they own Axe of course, infamous peddlers of archaic gender role pushing crap like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPJjgIfRkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPJjgIfRkI So yeah, the first step on making responsible ads for the internet is banning these particular vermins at Unilever.
- dboreham 9y agoI wonder how much the spend advertising on Fox News?
- userbinator 9y agoGood, the world could do with less advertising. At least we now know what the "toxic content" is good for --- much like rat poison. ;)
- Erik816 9y agoAnd who will be deciding what is "toxic"? Corporate pressure to make companies who already lean towards a political monoculture even more inclined to silence dissenting views is really not encouraging if you believe that discovering the truth requires exposing yourself to a broad range of ideas.
- consumer451 9y ago"pull its ads from social sites such as Facebook and YouTube if the tech companies don't do more to minimize divisive content on their platforms." Can the divisive part also apply to any cable news networks guilty of divisiveness?
- cat199 9y ago> Can the divisive part also apply to any cable news networks guilty of divisiveness? no, because these are already in the pocket..
- duxup 9y agoThey sort of talk around dealing with the content, along some other super vague ideas about platforms that "make a positive contribution to society" but really this seems to be more about keeping their ads away from that content. I'm not sure it really addresses the content itself, everyone else's adds will just fill that gap.
- 534b44a 9y agoAdvertisers want more targeting control on which exact content their ads are displayed on. Why doesn't facebook grant them the ability to run callbacks based on that data so they can effectively moderate the demonetization themselves?
- HoochTHX 9y agoDo you want Thought Police because this is how you get Thought Police?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ihsw2 9y agoThe chasm deepens between progressive supremacist propagandists and reality. I don't think these ivory tower elitists fully grasp how offensive their ideology is. One can only hope they return to ad policies that eschew social constructivism for plain advertisements displaying the utility of their products, but I won't hold my breath.
- mywittyname 9y agoEvery company aspires to have a lifestyle brand.
- flylib 9y agoI call BS, they will go where consumers are
- mixmastamyk 9y agoDidn’t FB just dial down it’s toxicity quite a bit?
- beedogs 9y agoI've seen no evidence of this having been done.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoI noticed a big drop in shared memes in late January, though they have inched back up when I looked today.
- SeanBoocock 9y agoAs noted in the article, Facebook has changed its News Feed algorithm to prioritize content from friends and family over publishers. This combined with their stated goal to increase moderation of all content should reduce perceived toxicity and increase relevancy. That's the theory at least, though like you I have yet to see it borne out in practice.
- tyingq 9y agoThis can't be great for Google. I suspect a large part of their margin is advertisers that assume their investment is paying off somehow. Should encourage some actual investigation of ROI in the space.
- beedogs 9y agoGood. The only thing Facebook listens to is money. I'll laugh when the alt-right tries to boycott Unilever, though. Enough big companies do this, and they'll all starve to death. :)
- sus_007 9y agoHere's a recent interview by Recode with Facebook's head of news partnerships & News Feed where they addressed this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU-MIj5vEjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU-MIj5vEjU
- kilolima 9y agoGood riddance. We don't need the advertising companies to regulate free speech on the internet.
- anorphirith 9y agogo ahead, please
- rch 9y agoHonestly, no more ads for Unilever brands sounds like a solid improvement. What do I have to post to get rid of the rest of them?
- cs702 9y agoRight now, there are three highly negative Facebook articles on the front page of HN, simultaneously: * this article, about Unilever pulling ads from Facebook and Google * an article about Facebook losing 2.8 million US users under 25 last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16360408 * an article about German courts ruling that Facebook's use of personal data is illegal: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16361614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16361614 The way people on HN feel about any technology today is how the rest of the world will feel about it tomorrow.[a] This does not bode well for Facebook. [a] Typical example: http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html
- akkat 9y agoAlternatively hn is simply a bubble and maybe Facebook would continue to be hated (but used) by hn users but will stay relatively the same among other (above 25 year old) people.
- nikanj 9y agoRemember when people on HN were all about Lisp?
- soared 9y agoI'd say that's undoubtedly not true. Hn loves open source, locally hosting software, customizable software, etc. The general public doesn't even know what open source is, prefer web apps that just work, and prefer OS X/windows to Linux. Hn doesn't predict market desires at all, its just a smaller subset of the same market.
- paulddraper 9y agoIs 2018 the Year of the Linux Desktop?
- simooooo 9y ago2017 was the year that made it run easily on a macbook. Which was neat. But it ran hot so I went back to OS X.
- walshemj 9y agoYou mean they thought that they could use programmatic add buying to reduce the cost (and make people redundant) - without understanding what they where buying and have a good way of monitoring. Also they should have taken greater interest in the agency they used to do the buying rather than just handing the PPC budget to the Marketing directors mate who he plays golf with. Its not all FB and Googles fault there is a lot of ass covering going on here.
- kvhdude 9y agoUnilever worried about sexism? have they viewed ads for ax body spray?
- fjsolwmv 9y agoAxe isn't sexist; it is selling a certain fantasy to people who want that fantasy. It isn't hurting or insulting any sex/gender.
- lgleason 9y agoSo two things here. First, you have the fact that these types of products are not easy to track ROI with. It's not like a click through ad where it is easy to see a direct conversion from a click to a purchase. The other issue has to do with privacy and pending regulation. More regulation and a drive towards privacy will mean less data, less data means less targeted direct measurement. Any way you look at this, it sounds like things are going to get interesting.
- ggg9990 9y agoMakes solid business sense. If you are doing generic brand advertising you want positive associations with your brand. Unilever pays millions of dollars to celebrities just to be associated with them. After all that you don’t want to show your million dollar ad next to an article about how Hillary Clinton ate a baby in 2004.
- yipbub 9y agoNot that the literal toxic dump of mercury they left behind in my hometown that lead to generations of deformity for people who lived nearby had much impact on their image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal_mercury_poisoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodaikanal_mercury_poisoning
- ThomPete 9y agoDefining what is toxic besides the most obvious content seems to be an almost impossible task.
- lopmotr 9y agoI guess the "disturbing content that exploits children" is those "5 supermans racing bikes" type videos. But how is "disturbing" a problem? That means the adults watching are confused or afraid of some unknown. But does it do any harm to children? It sounds way too similar to the old fights against violence in videogames and swear words in music, or even color TV. I think when people become parents they go hunting for things they worry might disturb their child and want to censor the whole world just in case.
- cooervo 9y ago> "Fake news, racism, sexism, terrorists spreading messages of hate, toxic content directed at children — parts of the internet we have ended up with is a million miles from where we thought it would take us," Sad but true. Also add reddit in its vocal, annoying, pro-Trump minority.
- sureaboutthis 9y agoI have not read the article yet but it looks like advertisers are starting to do what online "news" sources used to do back when news was trustworthy. Vetting of content by educated, professional editors. When I worked in radio and TV, years ago, small stations that couldn't afford a news department would just rip news copy off the teletype machine from UPI and AP and read that. Thus the term "rip and readers" as a derogatory term for a bad news man or department. Something you see on virtually every TV station now except with video.
- xstartup 9y agoIt seems these companies are failing to compete with niche product companies in online space. Failure to shove ads down consumers' throat by leverage their overall net ad spend on the ad network regardless of customers' engagement.
- dalbasal 9y agoWhen Google AdWords was starting out, there was a famous line about "can't sell coke on Facebook." It's still true. AdWords worked for DIY ebooks, lawyers, dentists, electricians, eBay, accounting software, night clubs... It never really worked for coke. Not sure that Unilever (dish soap and other supermarket consumables should advertise on FB. I really hope fb (also Google properties like YouTube) don't try to PG their content further. The problem is spam and garbage, not breasts and politics.
- chewz 9y agoLooks like Facebook is the new Theranos.
- mtgx 9y agoSeems like this will be a controversial comment here, but why should the advertisers get to dictate the content? Do we want Unilever to decide what we see on TV, too (such as political opinions, etc) ?
- astura 9y agoSeriously? They most certainly already do. Which is why stuff like nudity and swearing is almost never shown on basic cable (advertising sponsored) but is shown on premium channels such as HBO which don't rely as much on advertising. Then every couple years we have people who get fired from TV or have their shows cancelled after advertisers pull out due to some controversy surrounding them. Soap operas got their name by originally being sponsored by soap companies. Then there's the advertisers that suspended YouTube ads after Elsagate, which prompted YouTube to clean up and ban certain content and channels, including one of it's top 100 channels Toy Freaks. And, yes, some political opinions are simply bad business, which is why we don't see them on TV. This isn't new, this has been the way the world works since the beginning of humanity.
- vectorEQ 9y agomost of the anti fake news brigde is only aimed at anti russian fake news end of the day xD.... the problem is that people still these days beleive any random shite they read on the news or internet without thinking and researching for themselves. learn people critical reading and thinking instead of trying to police the interwebz :s "Fake news, racism, sexism, terrorists spreading messages of hate, toxic content directed at children — parts of the internet we have ended up with is a million miles from where we thought it would take us," <-- really ,where did u think anonymous free speach would lead? Happy clappy love land? someone misunderstands the human condition. the world is in a shit state and so this reflects to the internet, if yu don't shield people from the real world by living in some kind of bubble they won't be so 'influenced' by the things they read on the internet because they will better understand it.
- jonathanstrange 9y agoYou sound cynical without any need for it. The hatred and fake news comes from small but very radical and vocal minorities. The vast majority of people is quite sensible and does not like this a bit, that's one of the reasons for a certain online fatigue and why people are so annoyed with many unmoderated forums nowadays. For example, I personally came to HN from Slashdot, which has become unbearably toxic within certain topics, even though they have tried to adjust their moderation attribution algorithms to compensate against the haters. The same reality distortion was already at place back on Usenet, though. It's a simple fact of life that certain crackpots and people with an agenda have way more time at hand than people with a real life. So we used killfiles. But apart from such drastic private solutions, moderation is the right way to go. In my view Unilever's pressure on Google and FB is quite welcome.
- snarfy 9y ago> that it will partner only with digital networks that pledge to use an industry standard for ad metrics and improve consumer ad experiences. Whatever standard this ends up being, it needs to guarantee you cannot get drive-by malware, or the ad blocker is staying on and the arms race will continue indefinitely.
- oflannabhra 9y agoBen Thompson, writing at Stratechery[1][2], has some good analysis of the CPG business model. One insight he highlights is that the entire CPG business model is tightly coupled to the retail business model: that is, consumer buying decisions used to happen at a retail location, meaning that brand awareness, loyalty, and product placement within the retail location were paramount. The entire structure of CPG companies is an organic outgrowth of a) retail's constrained distribution and b) old-media advertising (radio, tv, etc). It makes sense, then that digital advertising does not deliver ROI on CPGs. E-commerce and digital advertising break all of the constraints above: consumers no longer have a single point-of-decision for what they buy, and because of that, digital advertisements can directly track their effectiveness (and ROI for advertisers) through immediate conversions. CPGs can somewhat take advantage of that new opportunity, but they are built for the post-war era of consumer behavior and advertising. [1] - https://stratechery.com/2016/dollar-shave-club-and-the-disruption-of-everything/ https://stratechery.com/2016/dollar-shave-club-and-the-disru... [2] - https://stratechery.com/2014/technology-changing-world-pg-edition/ https://stratechery.com/2014/technology-changing-world-pg-ed...