8 ms·

Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impac

Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impact on their business. All of the companies doing this right now are 'pausing spend' rather than redirecting. They're reducing their marketing budgets and pointing the finger at Facebook so no one looks too closely at the implications of their reduced ad spend.

thefounder 6y ago
How do you know all that?
vvanders 6y ago
Either way, if it puts pressure on FB to structure their business in a way that doesn't push hate at a micro targeted level isn't that a good thing?
- ve55 6y ago
  It's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound snarky, but I mean it sincerely: Would you rather they become more like Twitter instead? Promoting virality is promoting outrage content, full-stop.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Could we prefer they no longer exist? Examples: there’s nothing an oil company can turn into that continues to sell oil in a non harmful manner. Altria tried to adopt vaping (still harmful) to move away from cigarettes (very harmful!). Some businesses and their products should simply not exist due to the harm they cause. I apologize upfront if this doesn’t seem genuine and instead, unnecessarily controversial.
    - aarpmcgee 6y ago
      I'd like to hear the arguments behind the downvotes you're getting. To me, it seems that there are some things that, for the sake of the continued existence of our species (and countless others) on this planet, must simply be seen with clarity.
      - shkkmo 6y ago
        Our economy cannot currently operate without oil. Even if we replace it for energy production, we still need oil to produce other types of products. Saying we should move towards using significantly less oil and that companies should pay for the negative externalities they cause is rational, saying oil companies should fundementally not exist is irrational. Similarly, while I find the way that cigarette companies operate to be abhorrent (specifically they way they use international law to fight packaging and health laws), people deserve the right to smoke if they choose as well as the right to be free of abusive advertising of dangerous products.
        namibj 6y ago
        We are able to synthesize methane from electricity+air with high-enough efficiency to use it as a chemical source. Some exotic stuff like asphalt might be difficult to synthesize, but most uses should be replaceable with a methane-based synthesis. Theoretically we could start a tax that progressively dis-incentivizes crude oil and natural gas extraction, but this is going to be hard unless US, EU, and CN agree on this, because the economic advantages of operating a refinery that stamps "synthetic" on their fossil products would be massive.
  - vvanders 6y ago
    Honestly? I think all political advertising shouldn't be allowed, it gives those with a disproportionate amount of capital a lever of influence that runs counter to the democratic process. If you want to push an issue you should have to organize people who believe in your cause and have them involved. There's been plenty of examples of microtargeting's influence that makes me think it has no place in the political discourse. No idea if we'll ever get there.
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      How would you organize people to your cause without doing anything that would be considered 'advertising'? Unless you narrowly define advertising in a way that is easily worked around..
      - vvanders 6y ago
        Same way we can have an open discussion on this lovely site we call HN. While I'm not going to claim to know every definition of advertising, generally if money changes hands for priority over organic traffic that fits the bill pretty well for me. Doubly so if you're able to target specific categories and demographics. I think what makes microtargeting so bad in particular is that you can do things that would be negative to the broader public but narrow the scope so you have multiple sides of a campaign that doesn't let the public have a reasonable view of that campaign/issue as a whole.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      What you're calling the democratic process is simply people willing to spend capital on a cause. It's just that their capital is time (and time is money). It doesn't make them any holier, and there's nothing morally or ethically superior about having to "organize people" without spending money. Put another way, I may be able to exert my political voice using money and I am not less deserving of having my opinion heard or any less deserving of influencing others than someone whose primary input is time (in lieu of other life pursuits).
      - OpieCunningham 6y ago
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    At least Twitter is mostly public. That allows stupid stuff to be opposed, and harmful things to be reported. With Facebook, and especially Groups, people are fully immersed in their self-selected filter bubble, and admins can run their colloidal-silver-scams without interference.
jedberg 6y ago
To be fair to Verizon, they have not laid off a single person since March. The retrained 95% of their retail workers to be at home support agents and the rest are still working in their stores for issues that have to be solved in person. So it makes sense that they would need to cut budget somewhere, since employees is not one of them.
- forbiddenvoid 6y ago
  I don't fault Verizon for cutting budget. It's absolutely the right thing to do. But if we weren't in the situation we're in they probably wouldn't be doing this. The nuance between "we're going to stop doing business with Facebook because Facebook is bad" and "we have to cut budget from advertising and we chose to cut it from Facebook because Facebook is bad" is important. It's convenient to do this now, but hard to believe that any of these companies would have done this at this kind of scale if they weren't backed into making cuts.
  - rectang 6y ago
    Why is it impossible that Verizon is responding, at least in part, to public pressure against Facebook?
    - chris_wot 6y ago
      The timing is quite suspicious.
      - rectang 6y ago
        I am as cynical about the behavior of large corporations as anyone. But you can never really know anybody's motivations, only guess them from their actions. Verizon could be doing it because of ad budgeting reasons. Verizon could be doing it because of public pressure. Most likely, both benefits go into their cost-benefit analysis.
        lern_too_spel 6y ago
anoncareer0212 6y ago
Fact-free assertions :/
- jariel 6y ago
  Ad spending is down universally, that much is true. [1] And everyone in ads knows this. This also makes it very easy for execs to spin some PR in whatever direction they want. It would be hard to provide 'evidence' that of the cynical take that VZ is just using this as an excuse, but there's no doubt the calculus works. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertising-marketing-covid19-pandemic-business/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertisi...
  - anoncareer0212 6y ago
    HN used to have higher standards for discourse than "there in an effect, therefore any cause is plausible" - I believe it still does
ogre_codes 6y ago
I suspect COVID-19 is making it easy for a lot of advertisers to drop FaceBook right now. Ad budgets are down and likely to stay down until this blows over.
throwaway_jobs 6y ago
>Sounds like Verizon’s Facebook advertising spend is losing value because if COVId-19 “We’re pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable,” Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me but rather advertisers don’t want to spend money advertising on a platform promoting hate speech. But let’s say this was a conspiracy by all these companies to save their ad dollars because they are being wasted on FB, why would they be afraid of the “implications of their reduced ad spend”? Certainly there is nothing wrong with these companies coming out and saying we are not going to spend money advertising on FB because it’s a waste of money. What else is the implication?
- aabhay 6y ago
  I see it as a "kill two birds" situation. Corporate ethics is a very different beast from human ethics. Getting any decision through a board room typically requires at least two entirely plausible value propositions.
  - jariel 6y ago
    No, it takes no decision from the board to cut ad spending due to COVID, which is happening universally. The bit about 'Facebook' is a very secondary thing and it's not in the same category of 'birds'. One is existential to the nature of the business, the other is a PR line.
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  Probably it’s both: two birds with one stone. (Saving costs + PR from participating against the populist right) Voila.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me Advertising is one of the first things companies cut during a downturn. Their revenues are down and they need to shave some costs. Where do they make that budget cut? It's a pretty easy call right now. They can shave some money and garner some easy positive press at the same time. They are getting advertising for cutting spending. When their revenue starts to come back online, they quietly turn Facebook advertising back on. If anyone calls them on it, they can say they feel the atmosphere on FB has improved.
seppin 6y ago
> Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impact on their business. My first thought on all these "boycotts". Are we cynical or is there any proof of this?
fumar 6y ago
As someone who helps fortune 100 companies with digital marketing, this is cynical view of Verizon and other companies. I am not sure why you are shifting the conversation from advertisers trying to reform FB to advertisers taking advantage of the media pause for positive PR. I don’t believe any of the companies with paused FB campaigns are paused elsewhere. That means Twitter, AdWords, Amazon, affiliate, and CTV spend is live. Digital marketing teams have to make hard decisions and decide how best to communicate with their customers or potential customers. Pausing FB is a step in the right direction. Other organizations have done the same on YouTube. I am as cynical as they come but I don’t see how reduced ad spend is something to hide and blame one single network.
- tinalumfoil 6y ago
  > I don’t believe any of the companies with paused FB campaigns are paused elsewhere > Other organizations have done the same on YouTube Can you clarify these points because the way I read them they sound contradictory. Also, where are you finding this info about companies' advertising spends? Not trying to be provocative, there's just a lot of misinformation out there.
  - fumar 6y ago
    For YouTube – that happened last year. Major agencies and corporations paused their YT spend. I wasn’t clear as I’m on mobile. You can search “YouTube advertiser boycott.”
    - solidasparagus 6y ago
      I thought the 2019 YT boycott was driven by the fact that YT kept showing ads next to content where pedophiles were commenting.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedophiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedoph...
      - fumar 6y ago
        It was caused by insufficient brand safety levers for advertisers on YT. I was providing an example where advertisers paused spend to show the importance of their beliefs.
Spooky23 6y ago
Really? Consumer facing telco is booming right now. TMobile has a purple ice cream truck selling phones in my neighborhood. What is the PR hit of reducing ad spend anyway? Ads are the most liquid corporate spend, it dries up in days if not producing a return.
jhowell 6y ago
What if they are just , “... pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable”? because they don't feel Facebook has acted in a manner consistent with their perceived values?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
You believe anyone but Facebook would notice (and care) about seeing fewer Verizon ads on the platform?
ponker 6y ago
If a marketing department is just told to reduce spend by 90% they will still be running some of their highest-ROI campaigns on Google and Facebook. Completely pausing Facebook means it's about something more than just budget cuts, because even with a reduced budget marketers always want to have at least a small presence on Google and Facebook since the ROIs are so high for the best campaigns.
raxxorrax 6y ago
While they basically advocating banning people in favor of corporate sensibilities. Cannot have something ugly in their ad spaces Normally I wouldn't even care, it is what I expect from ad-tech. But I think I will remember that. There were other companies.
onion2k 6y ago
The real reason doesn't matter. If a company leaves and says it's due to Facebook's promotion of hate speech then there's no way that company can go back to advertising on Facebook before that changes (it'd look like a change of heart, and that now they think promoting hate speech is OK). Facebook are seeing a drop in ad revenue no matter what, and the only way to get the companies back will be to change. Maybe FB don't care about getting them back, but I suspect that's not likely.

thefounder 6y ago

How do you know all that?

vvanders 6y ago

Either way, if it puts pressure on FB to structure their business in a way that doesn't push hate at a micro targeted level isn't that a good thing?

ve55 6y ago
It's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound snarky, but I mean it sincerely: Would you rather they become more like Twitter instead? Promoting virality is promoting outrage content, full-stop.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Could we prefer they no longer exist? Examples: there’s nothing an oil company can turn into that continues to sell oil in a non harmful manner. Altria tried to adopt vaping (still harmful) to move away from cigarettes (very harmful!). Some businesses and their products should simply not exist due to the harm they cause. I apologize upfront if this doesn’t seem genuine and instead, unnecessarily controversial.
  - aarpmcgee 6y ago
    I'd like to hear the arguments behind the downvotes you're getting. To me, it seems that there are some things that, for the sake of the continued existence of our species (and countless others) on this planet, must simply be seen with clarity.
    - shkkmo 6y ago
      Our economy cannot currently operate without oil. Even if we replace it for energy production, we still need oil to produce other types of products. Saying we should move towards using significantly less oil and that companies should pay for the negative externalities they cause is rational, saying oil companies should fundementally not exist is irrational. Similarly, while I find the way that cigarette companies operate to be abhorrent (specifically they way they use international law to fight packaging and health laws), people deserve the right to smoke if they choose as well as the right to be free of abusive advertising of dangerous products.
      - namibj 6y ago
        We are able to synthesize methane from electricity+air with high-enough efficiency to use it as a chemical source. Some exotic stuff like asphalt might be difficult to synthesize, but most uses should be replaceable with a methane-based synthesis. Theoretically we could start a tax that progressively dis-incentivizes crude oil and natural gas extraction, but this is going to be hard unless US, EU, and CN agree on this, because the economic advantages of operating a refinery that stamps "synthetic" on their fossil products would be massive.
- vvanders 6y ago
  Honestly? I think all political advertising shouldn't be allowed, it gives those with a disproportionate amount of capital a lever of influence that runs counter to the democratic process. If you want to push an issue you should have to organize people who believe in your cause and have them involved. There's been plenty of examples of microtargeting's influence that makes me think it has no place in the political discourse. No idea if we'll ever get there.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    How would you organize people to your cause without doing anything that would be considered 'advertising'? Unless you narrowly define advertising in a way that is easily worked around..
    - vvanders 6y ago
      Same way we can have an open discussion on this lovely site we call HN. While I'm not going to claim to know every definition of advertising, generally if money changes hands for priority over organic traffic that fits the bill pretty well for me. Doubly so if you're able to target specific categories and demographics. I think what makes microtargeting so bad in particular is that you can do things that would be negative to the broader public but narrow the scope so you have multiple sides of a campaign that doesn't let the public have a reasonable view of that campaign/issue as a whole.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    What you're calling the democratic process is simply people willing to spend capital on a cause. It's just that their capital is time (and time is money). It doesn't make them any holier, and there's nothing morally or ethically superior about having to "organize people" without spending money. Put another way, I may be able to exert my political voice using money and I am not less deserving of having my opinion heard or any less deserving of influencing others than someone whose primary input is time (in lieu of other life pursuits).
    - OpieCunningham 6y ago
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  At least Twitter is mostly public. That allows stupid stuff to be opposed, and harmful things to be reported. With Facebook, and especially Groups, people are fully immersed in their self-selected filter bubble, and admins can run their colloidal-silver-scams without interference.

jedberg 6y ago

To be fair to Verizon, they have not laid off a single person since March. The retrained 95% of their retail workers to be at home support agents and the rest are still working in their stores for issues that have to be solved in person. So it makes sense that they would need to cut budget somewhere, since employees is not one of them.

forbiddenvoid 6y ago
I don't fault Verizon for cutting budget. It's absolutely the right thing to do. But if we weren't in the situation we're in they probably wouldn't be doing this. The nuance between "we're going to stop doing business with Facebook because Facebook is bad" and "we have to cut budget from advertising and we chose to cut it from Facebook because Facebook is bad" is important. It's convenient to do this now, but hard to believe that any of these companies would have done this at this kind of scale if they weren't backed into making cuts.
- rectang 6y ago
  Why is it impossible that Verizon is responding, at least in part, to public pressure against Facebook?
  - chris_wot 6y ago
    The timing is quite suspicious.
    - rectang 6y ago
      I am as cynical about the behavior of large corporations as anyone. But you can never really know anybody's motivations, only guess them from their actions. Verizon could be doing it because of ad budgeting reasons. Verizon could be doing it because of public pressure. Most likely, both benefits go into their cost-benefit analysis.
      - lern_too_spel 6y ago

anoncareer0212 6y ago

Fact-free assertions :/

jariel 6y ago
Ad spending is down universally, that much is true. [1] And everyone in ads knows this. This also makes it very easy for execs to spin some PR in whatever direction they want. It would be hard to provide 'evidence' that of the cynical take that VZ is just using this as an excuse, but there's no doubt the calculus works. [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertising-marketing-covid19-pandemic-business/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertisi...
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  HN used to have higher standards for discourse than "there in an effect, therefore any cause is plausible" - I believe it still does

ogre_codes 6y ago

I suspect COVID-19 is making it easy for a lot of advertisers to drop FaceBook right now. Ad budgets are down and likely to stay down until this blows over.

throwaway_jobs 6y ago

>Sounds like Verizon’s Facebook advertising spend is losing value because if COVId-19 “We’re pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable,” Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me but rather advertisers don’t want to spend money advertising on a platform promoting hate speech. But let’s say this was a conspiracy by all these companies to save their ad dollars because they are being wasted on FB, why would they be afraid of the “implications of their reduced ad spend”? Certainly there is nothing wrong with these companies coming out and saying we are not going to spend money advertising on FB because it’s a waste of money. What else is the implication?

aabhay 6y ago
I see it as a "kill two birds" situation. Corporate ethics is a very different beast from human ethics. Getting any decision through a board room typically requires at least two entirely plausible value propositions.
- jariel 6y ago
  No, it takes no decision from the board to cut ad spending due to COVID, which is happening universally. The bit about 'Facebook' is a very secondary thing and it's not in the same category of 'birds'. One is existential to the nature of the business, the other is a PR line.
lasagnaphil 6y ago
Probably it’s both: two birds with one stone. (Saving costs + PR from participating against the populist right) Voila.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me Advertising is one of the first things companies cut during a downturn. Their revenues are down and they need to shave some costs. Where do they make that budget cut? It's a pretty easy call right now. They can shave some money and garner some easy positive press at the same time. They are getting advertising for cutting spending. When their revenue starts to come back online, they quietly turn Facebook advertising back on. If anyone calls them on it, they can say they feel the atmosphere on FB has improved.

seppin 6y ago

> Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impact on their business. My first thought on all these "boycotts". Are we cynical or is there any proof of this?

fumar 6y ago

As someone who helps fortune 100 companies with digital marketing, this is cynical view of Verizon and other companies. I am not sure why you are shifting the conversation from advertisers trying to reform FB to advertisers taking advantage of the media pause for positive PR. I don’t believe any of the companies with paused FB campaigns are paused elsewhere. That means Twitter, AdWords, Amazon, affiliate, and CTV spend is live. Digital marketing teams have to make hard decisions and decide how best to communicate with their customers or potential customers. Pausing FB is a step in the right direction. Other organizations have done the same on YouTube. I am as cynical as they come but I don’t see how reduced ad spend is something to hide and blame one single network.

tinalumfoil 6y ago
> I don’t believe any of the companies with paused FB campaigns are paused elsewhere > Other organizations have done the same on YouTube Can you clarify these points because the way I read them they sound contradictory. Also, where are you finding this info about companies' advertising spends? Not trying to be provocative, there's just a lot of misinformation out there.
- fumar 6y ago
  For YouTube – that happened last year. Major agencies and corporations paused their YT spend. I wasn’t clear as I’m on mobile. You can search “YouTube advertiser boycott.”
  - solidasparagus 6y ago
    I thought the 2019 YT boycott was driven by the fact that YT kept showing ads next to content where pedophiles were commenting.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedophiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedoph...
    - fumar 6y ago
      It was caused by insufficient brand safety levers for advertisers on YT. I was providing an example where advertisers paused spend to show the importance of their beliefs.

Spooky23 6y ago

Really? Consumer facing telco is booming right now. TMobile has a purple ice cream truck selling phones in my neighborhood. What is the PR hit of reducing ad spend anyway? Ads are the most liquid corporate spend, it dries up in days if not producing a return.

jhowell 6y ago

What if they are just , “... pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable”? because they don't feel Facebook has acted in a manner consistent with their perceived values?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

You believe anyone but Facebook would notice (and care) about seeing fewer Verizon ads on the platform?

ponker 6y ago

If a marketing department is just told to reduce spend by 90% they will still be running some of their highest-ROI campaigns on Google and Facebook. Completely pausing Facebook means it's about something more than just budget cuts, because even with a reduced budget marketers always want to have at least a small presence on Google and Facebook since the ROIs are so high for the best campaigns.

raxxorrax 6y ago

While they basically advocating banning people in favor of corporate sensibilities. Cannot have something ugly in their ad spaces Normally I wouldn't even care, it is what I expect from ad-tech. But I think I will remember that. There were other companies.

onion2k 6y ago

The real reason doesn't matter. If a company leaves and says it's due to Facebook's promotion of hate speech then there's no way that company can go back to advertising on Facebook before that changes (it'd look like a change of heart, and that now they think promoting hate speech is OK). Facebook are seeing a drop in ad revenue no matter what, and the only way to get the companies back will be to change. Maybe FB don't care about getting them back, but I suspect that's not likely.