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The North Face becomes first major brand to join Facebook ad boycott
- impostergc 6y agoIronically this will give Facebook even more power if they concede to these demands, which I think will ultimately backfire. Censorship as the woke tool of corporations is one of the craziest things happening in a very crazy year.
- yladiz 6y ago> Censorship as the woke tool of corporations is one of the craziest things happening in a very crazy year. What do you mean by this?
- Avicebron 6y agoNot OP, but probably the fact that being woke implies the use of censorship. On their face they seem mutually exclusive
- prepend 6y agoI think it’s just guerrilla marketing. I got an email today from a standing desk vendor I met at a conference urging me to join them in celebrating Juneteenth. And to buy a desk. I wonder what the conversation rate is for these woke-facaded ads. Maybe companies are geniuses/amoral jerks and these things work. I have noticed people assuming that available data are representative of the population and I wonder if companies are making these decisions based on thinking that tweets/online activity are uniform with all people. I had a colleague who would say “any change is better than nothing” and then make changes after talking to a single person.
- purple_ferret 6y agoHow so? Facebook clearly benefits from the outrage clickbait model.
- fartcannon 6y agoI thought we were boycotting The North Face for their Wikipedia vandalism advertising?
- tech-historian 6y agoExactly, was just going to post this. More detail for people that might not remember: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18644158/north-face-wikipedia-hack-leo-burnett-top-imagens https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18644158/north-face-wikip...
- umeshunni 6y agoWhy spend on Facebook when you can advertise on Wikipedia for free?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI continue to be extraordinarily skeptical of companies boycotting each other as a social change strategy. The more we deputize brands for this kind of thing, the more we encourage people to ignore protests that aren't supported by brands.
- prepend 6y ago“Sorry, we only support protests sponsored by pepsi products in this city.” It will be funny if brands start sponsoring the admin fees that jurisdictions require for marches and gatherings.
- 082349872349872 6y ago"Gravy Planet" / "The Space Merchants"
- someluccc 6y agoI think there’s an inclination to see ‘wokeism’ from brands as a very current development when in fact the idea of a “Chinese Wall” existing to relieve the tension between editorial and commercial depts. has been central to all media companies for a long long time. What North Face is doing is no different from what Philip Morris could do to a publication running tobacco health stories. What is new, in my opinion, is that the idea that there should be a Chinese Wall at all is no longer taken for granted. The implication to the way stories like this are presented and shared being that it is in fact desirable for advertisers to coerce editorial decisions to align with certain correct opinions.
- m0zg 6y agoMuch easier to temporarily boycott Facebook than cease the use of sweatshops and child labor. Note how it's always someone else that needs to change or pay for something, never the person/brand signaling virtue.
- pnako 6y agoIt makes sense. North Face executives are probably wondering why Facebook allows comments around their beautiful ads in the first place.