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Unilever is latest brand to boycott Facebook
- ve55 6y agoIt's interesting that no advertisers had even a hint of concern when informed about the massive privacy invasions, many of them highly illegal, that Facebook performed for a profit.
- ciarannolan 6y agoProbably because they all participate along with Facebook in the same anti-privacy racket.
- cortesoft 6y agoThis is because not enough people were actually upset about that... there are enough people upset about the latest rounds of scandals that advertisers are deciding it is worth pulling advertising. That, or they are realizing they aren't getting a good ROI on facebook ads and figure now is a good time to pull out.
- drumhead 6y agoI think the latter reason is correct. If it were an important generator of business they would never leave. Its clearly not as valuable to them as maybe Facebook thinks it is.
- sarah180 6y agoA significant portion of advertising is about building brand identities and associations in consumers' minds, not about driving direct sales. This is why some companies worry so much about their ads appearing next to objectionable content. They're not trying to get you to go buy something: they're trying to get you to associate their brand with a certain lifestyle and identity. If the context changes so those associations become negative, the value of that advertising can swing rapidly.
- nailer 6y agoThat's an excellent observation. Are enough people angry at Facebook for not interfering in public discussion?
- standardUser 6y agoIs it interesting? It's pretty obvious that all people and all companies cannot be upset about all things all of the time. The fact that some people and some companies get upset about some things some of the time is actually a massive improvement over how it was in the 90's and earlier. A sea change.
- ciarannolan 6y ago>Facebook brought in nearly $70 billion in advertising revenue last year. What % of that was from companies that are now boycotting, including Unilever? I have to imagine a company like Unilever was spending no small sum on Facebook ads.
- henryfjordan 6y agohttps://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-and-twitter-advertising-for-rest-of-2020-due-to-polarized-atmosphere-in-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-and... This article has some more details about some large companies spending habits on FB ads, including this quote: > The consumer products giant has spent more than $11.8 million in the U.S. this year on Facebook, according to marketing analytics firm Pathmatics.
- ggregoire 6y agoInteresting chart in this article: https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Advertisers_Facebook.1593190628109.png https://fm-static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Ad...
- elliekelly 6y agoI’m shocked a mattress company that I’ve never even heard of spends that much on facebook ads.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- divbzero 6y agoI too am surprised. This mattress company [1] was founded in 2015 and acquired for $1.1 billion in 2017. That’s an exit comparable to Instagram in speed and scale. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(company)
- Vomzor 6y agoThe cynic in me thinks this could be a great way to cut costs in preparation of the Greater Depression while hiding behind a worthy PR cause.
- MrsPeaches 6y ago> saying it profits off bigotry, racism and violence. People in glass houses... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge
- stagger87 6y agoThat was between 80-110 years ago. Is anyone that was even a part of that decision making process still alive?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cortesoft 6y agoIf no institution that ever participated in bigotry, racism, and/or violence is allowed to take a stand against those things now, there will be no organizations left. If the United States tries to pass laws against those things, are you going to point out that the US had slavery 160 years ago? BMW made equipment for the Nazis.
- lonelyasacloud 6y agoUnilever the company that kept killing people by adding hydrogenated vegetable fat to most of its products long after the disastrous effects of trans fats on heart health were well known. Unilever the company that when it finally removed the hydrogenated vegetable oil decided to replace it with Palm Oil. Which, given the amount it uses (the world's largest consumer) has massively contributed to the destruction of the planet's remaining tropical rainforest. Then we've got enormous amount of plastic pollution ... So, is Unilever really attempting to occupy the moral high ground? Or is it just an attempt to sell more of it planet destroying sh*t to a particular demographic?
- StLCylone 6y agoGood. Facebook is just an echo chamber for hate speech and mis-information. Looking at you high school friends.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nindalf 6y agoYou think your other sources of information are better? You're sure that Hacker News isn't an echo chamber?
- missedthecue 6y agoHN is an echo chamber on anything Facebook related. Everyone here is patting themselves on the back
- anon_1_1_1 6y agoYes, Hacker News is a lot better than Facebook, I think. Here, the crowd seems to skew extremely libertarian and contrarian and really, really, really, really, really kneejerk hates JavaScript, but on Facebook I was regularly seeing hate speech and conspiracy theories. I do think one is worse than the other.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y agoAs a libertarian with -10 karma, this comment is hilariously wrong (I had a lot more before I started speaking my mind) This site, like most, is a liberal echo chamber. Though I will say it's still a decent place to have a debate as long as you are fine with fighting 10v1 and going negative, which I am. The most frustrating thing is the post limit you run into when you get flagged/negative karma. It's really annoying to be in a debate and not be able to reply. I abuse the edit feature to get around it, but that's limited. Also the ability to only downvote with 500+ karma leads to group think. Only the high karma users with the popular opinions can downvote, and they certainly use it.
- oplav 6y ago> Unilever, the maker of Dove soap and Hellmann's mayonnaise, will stop advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S. through the end of the year. The company cited a need to end divisiveness and hate speech during a polarized election season. Why was Twitter included in this?
- stagger87 6y agoProbably because Unilever thinks Twitter is a source of divisiveness and hate speech.
- throwaway_12351 6y agoProbably because the recession side effects are real, and advertisements are costly.
- greyswan 6y agoI would bet that marketing departments for companies like Unilever have a hard time showing ROI on Facebook advertising. Why not get some marketing attention for cutting your spend?
- mcintyre1994 6y agoI don’t think I’ve ever seen a Facebook ad that wasn’t trying to get me to do something, to go to some page or to click through to a store full of tracking garbage and buy something. Surely for all of those you can very easily measure RoI? I’d understand this argument for something like YouTube where most ads seem to be TV style and not trying to get me to click away to buy something immediately, but Facebook ads seem to always want me to go do something they can trivially track.
- greyswan 6y agoThat doesn't mean that works for them. I hope the vast majority of purchases of Dove, Breyers, Klondike, Lipton, Vaseline, etc. can't be connected to social media impressions.
- three_seagrass 6y agoThis is huge because Unilever is a conglomerate of B2C brands. Online presence is a big budget item for them.
- fludlight 6y agoDoes Unilever really need to run ads on Facebook? They sell soap and ice cream[1]. That budget would be better spent on product placement with influencers on some type of image/video centric site like Instagram, Snap, TikTok, etc. Edit: Apparently they are pulling out of Instagram as well. Maybe that didn't meet their ROI expectations? [1] https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/ https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/
- rglover 6y agoIt's a good play. See pictures of your ex-boyfriend with his new girlfriend and feeling a little blue? What's better than a nice hot shower and a pint of Ben & Jerry's? That coupled with brand recognition and I'm surprised companies don't spend more than they do.
- fludlight 6y agoHaha, I was thinking about paying users with >100k followers, not the platform, to mention the soap tangentially or have the ice cream in-frame in a picture supposedly about relaxing. I'm surprised the platforms haven't rolled out scalable middleman services for this.
- twirlock 6y agoThis helps me out in arguments about whether a corporate priesthood is just throwing its weight around and hiding behind moralizations to do it. Thanks, Unilever!
- TAForObvReasons 6y agoOfficial statement: https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and-features/2020/driving-a-responsible-digital-ecosystem-during-these-polarized-times.html https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and-features/2020/driv... > Given our Responsibility Framework and the polarized atmosphere in the U.S., we have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we will not run brand advertising in social media newsfeed platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S. > We will maintain our total planned media investment in the U.S. by shifting to other media.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- redis_mlc 6y ago> the polarized atmosphere in the U.S That's smooth. Almost as good as MS saying they're removing update settings to 'prevent confusion.'
- throwawaysea 6y agoNote that some brands under Unilever (like Ben & Jerry's) had already stopped their Facebook ad spend. Unilever is also only pausing advertising on these platforms in the US.
- fludlight 6y agoFox News has been the target of an ad boycott every year or two for the past decade. They did not lead to any meaningful change. Every time they get rid of the most egregious hosts and replace them with new ones. The new ones start out moderate, then inevitably drift to extremism. The advertisers have plausible deniability for half of their employees and customers. The other half don't care or are cheering Fox. Mutual fund companies do something similar with underperforming funds. They cull the worst performers and the remainder make the whole fund family look good due to the magic of survivorship bias. Facebook is obviously drastically different than Fox. That said, they are a large company and organizational inertia is very hard to overcome. Right now FB is optimized to promote quantity of engagement without regard to quality. Turning down the heat and promoting civility would result in fewer posts, which would mean fewer ad impressions. That's not happening.
- berdario 6y agoFox News doesn't change because apparently they don't get most of their money from advertisement, but rather from cable bundling https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you-have-cable-you-are-subsidizing-Fox-News-It-might-be-time-to-cut-the-cord-Here-s-how https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you-hav...
- methodsignature 6y agoI'd imagine individual shows are still more wholly tied to ad dollars. Doesn't defeat your point.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rossdavidh 6y agoAgreed. Another reason, besides inertia, is that optimizing for quantity of engagement is something you can program a computer to do, reasonably easily (although I'm sure they're very good at it). Optimizing for quality of engagement is, if not impossible, then at the very least a lot harder. It would probably also require a LOT more moderation, and that brings with it a whole host of other political landmines. It is worth considering, that a "link everyone to everyone, without any particular topic or purpose in mind" social network, is just a bad idea. Goodreads, LinkedIn, StackOverflow, they're none of them perfect, but they're all a lot better than Facebook. They also all have some purpose. I think Facebook may not be fixable. So long as it makes money, though, it will not go anywhere.
- npunt 6y agoDon't forget that loudly leaving and quietly returning is the nature of many supposed changes in the world.
- Jugurtha 6y agoThis reminds me of congressional hearings where $tech_exec_du_jour gets grilled publicly, and begged for funds privately. It also reminds me of a remark from Henry Paulson about a conversation with Barack Obama during the latter's campaign, which took place in the midst of the financial crisis. Paulson recalls (https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166 https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166): """ He very nicely warned me: 'You better take care of the Republican candidate because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout rhetoric from him, I'm going to have to start talking that way'. """ The fact I registered that nonchalant remark probably is telling of why I wasn't drawn to operate in politics where shape shifting is sine qua non. Speaking of Facebook, you could see Joel Kaplan, Facebook's VP of Global Policy, also known as the guy sitting behind Zuckerberg in practically every hearing, in some shots. EDIT: confusing quote edited as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571.
- netsharc 6y agoYour quoting is unparseable without watching the video... Paulson said about Obama: "He very nicely warned me, 'You better take care of the Republican candidate, because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout rhetoric from him, I'm going to have to start talking that way.'." I.e. Paulson claims Obama said the sentence starting with "You better...". And just reading this sentence makes me wonder what the context of why Obama said this.
- ajb 6y agoWhat's interesting here is that these big brands see Facebook advertising as non-essential to their business. I suspect a large part of Facebook's market cap may rest on the assumption that it's an essential advertising outlet. If so, the knock-on effect of this would be much larger than just the loss of revenue, hence Zuckerberg rushing out a response.
- nimbius 6y agoBold of you to assume Unilever has so little understanding of their consumer that they are relegated to the metrics they collect from their vendor. Facebook is a fat red X for young new markets who increasingly eschew it's tone-deaf cash cow platform for increasingly less commoditized alternatives. what once stood as a beacon of unity is now an increasingly ugly and divisive platform that's outlived its original purpose: predatory surveillance capitalism. Brands are in my opinion evolving, and using zuckerbergs increasing incompetence as an excuse to loose themselves from contracts.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y agoMember since the student requirement. I must have missed the "beacon of unity" phase. It is just another website. I remember other websites providing similar functionality around the time Facebook appeared (not MySpace, Friendster, or any of those), including the ability to see who last visited your page: other members. You could then go visit their page. AFAIK, Facebook never had that. Instead it had "poke". If today you could see who is accessing your Facebook page, it would probably inhibit you from posting so much personal content. The entire design of today's Facebook is to dissuade you from activiely checking friends' or potential friends' pages on your own initiative. Instead Facebook wants to "feed" you content from other members (and advertisers). Default settings and behaviour discourage exploration and encourage relying on "suggestions" (by Facebook) instead. They even go so far as to ask for money to "promote" your page to others.
- pm90 6y agoI remember a time when all my friends were on Facebook. Being able to connect in a concrete way with people that lived far far away seemed magical. Facebook was that scrappy SV upstart that wanted to change the world and provided an ads free experience focused almost completely on people. It seems like a hazy memory, but I do remember liking it and imagining it as an agent of good in the general scheme of things. Very different from the toxic wasteland it is today.
- sharkweek 6y agoThis all has reminded me of the laws preventing big tobacco from running television ads. I might be getting my details crossed but remember reading all the major cigarette brands ended up seeing this as a long term win because of how much money it’d save them to not have to advertise through an expensive channel, knowing their competitors couldn’t either. I’d imagine if enough major consumer brands all sort of agreed not to compete on Facebook ads, it might end up helping them all in the long run. Of course prisoners dilemma and all...
- dilandau 6y agoJust look at FB's stock over the last week. Wew lads, this is actually pretty big. From ~245 to 215 at market close today.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoThat's got more to do with the resurgence of Coronavirus cases than anything else.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Jedd 6y agoIn 2011 I worked at a startup in the online marketing / advertising space. It was a surreal, over-crowded, confusing, fact-light, peer-pressure driven, mystical, big promises, metrics-resistant, yet bewilderingly optimistic market place. In the past decade it's gotten much, much worse. Compare the field in 2011 [1] to now [2]. Then consider that there are people to whom all of this makes sense. [1] https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_landscape.jpg https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_lan... [2] https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/martech-landscape-2020-martech5000-slide.jpg https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/marte...
- wdr1 6y agoThe image resolution on (2) is too low to clearly see everything, but it also looks like they're including more & more (sub-?)industries over the year. E.g., SEO wasn't included in 2011 but is in 2020.
- Jedd 6y agoIt's clear that there were increasing numbers of sub-industries, and players in those sub-industries, over time. SEO in 2011 certainly wasn't nascent, but it was a bit of a black art, and not an especially large sector. I don't think there were (m)any that were offering exclusively SEO products -- from memory it was more of a bundled / add-on offering for other services.
- kgin 6y agoUnilever's marketing team rightly recognizes this as a moment when temporarily boycotting running facebook ads gains them more attention and good will for free than their ads that were previously running on facebook did for pay.
- amriksohata 6y agoHmm, welcome from Unilever, the brand that promoted the "fair and lovely" creams in India and created a whole well-marketed industry of fair skin being better. In which itself promoted hatred of darker skinned people.