4 ms·

I run a PR agency and in my experience, the bigger the brand, the more conservative they are. Many have dedicated brand teams who care only about how the brand

I run a PR agency and in my experience, the bigger the brand, the more conservative they are. Many have dedicated brand teams who care only about how the brand is portrayed. Multiple independent departments would likely be weighing in on the issue. Unless Twitter was an enormously successful marketing channel for the business (it almost never is), why risk it?

mrtksn 4y ago
So what's the risk here? What happens if someone sees an ad for Adidas above a tweet saying some bigoted stuff? I can reason for Kanye being dropped by the brands after saying unhinged things, as they directly engage with him but in the context of web advertisement what is the mechanics of unrelated content damaging the brand?
- kristintynski 4y ago
  The damage of a screenshot of the ads next to horrible shit going viral. Many brands probably also have concerns about potential subconscious impacts of the association, even if they would be hard to measure. Brand teams at big companies, especially those in regulated industries, are incredibly risk averse. With Twitter typically being a small minority in a marketing mix, there’s a quickly diminishing benefit to sticking it out. Add in a buggy ad platform that can steal your money? Lol nope.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    Here is a quick screenshot I just took of Casio watch ad delivered by Google on a very popular Turkish website founded by ex Microsoft engineer displayed next to the topic of "Elon Musk getting rid of the Twitter managers of Indian origin" https://i.imgur.com/eO8uvsl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eO8uvsl.jpg The content is similar to right-wing Twitter, someone says how the Woke are letting Indians replacing the whites of America and the others reply to these with counter claims. Typical alt-right BS is everywhere and this is just one example from a recent popular topic. The website is pretty much what Musk promised for free-speech: Anything legal goes. Of course a lot of anti-govt stuff is removed all the time because, Turkey. But stuff like this stays and all kind of brands have no problem advertising here. The website is alive and well since 1999 and the founder is very well known person who moved to California for good(probably was afraid from the Turkish govt, they were arresting media bosses all the time). My point is, that brand safety stuff might not be absolute. I get your reasoning but that reasoning doesn't seem to apply everywhere and I wonder why Twitter wouldn't get an exception too.
    - kristintynski 4y ago
      I think it would have to be an exceptionally good ad platform for most brands to look the other way. It’s never been a great performer and has historically had way fewer advertisers than Facebook.
    - threeseed 4y ago
      > brand safety stuff might not be absolute What you're missing is that Twitter is not a top-tier advertising channel. They are a very distant 3rd behind Facebook and Google and getting worse by the day. So it's not like advertisers are desperate to run ads on Twitter. In fact it has been the opposite. Twitter had to go out of their way to convince advertisers to come e.g. brand safety teams, account managers etc. And now that those teams are gone the status quo is actually for advertisers to not run ads.
  - Balgair 4y ago
    There's a small personal side too. No one likes to see the packaging that their team spent months making splattered in a mud puddle.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  Because the juxtapostion of the ad with the offensive content makes it look like the advertiser endorses the content. Which in a sense they do because they're paying to keep the lights on.
  - csande17 4y ago
    > Because the juxtapostion of the ad with the offensive content makes it look like the advertiser endorses the content. This isn't the case, not really. No one believes that Henry Ford has personally reviewed and approved every social media post that has an ad for Ford trucks next to it. That's just not how online advertisements work. (Consider that Gmail shows ads in your inbox, and that doesn't mean Ford is reading your mail.) But activists and old-media and the like have managed to convince a lot of advertisers that it is the case. This happened relatively recently; the YouTube "ad-pocalypse" is less than ten years old. It'll be interesting to see how this perception changes in the future.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > No one believes that Henry Ford has personally reviewed and approved every social media post that has an ad for Ford trucks next to it. Because he died in 1947?
      - csande17 4y ago
        Among other reasons!
    - threeseed 4y ago
      You have this completely backwards. Advertisers are the ones with the power here. It is their money and there is a wide array of choices for them to spend that money. And they have made clear over many years that brand safety is important to them. So if Twitter doesn't want to listen to them then they will suffer not the advertisers.
      - csande17 4y ago
- rsynnott 4y ago
  I believe Twitter "ads" are mostly promoted tweets; people can _reply_ to them. That's a significant risk. (Incidentally, I just went to twitter to try to confirm my impression that they're always/nearly always interactive... It's no longer serving me ads. A couple of days ago it was at least showing me ads for online gambling and GPT-3-looking spam articles...)
kristintynski 4y ago
Also, many larger companies advertise on Twitter simply to cover all their bases. If Twitter becomes an advertising pariah, higher ups are going to be asking the marketing team to justify staying. Given the mediocre ROI of Twitter ads in general, I think we will see many marketing heads err on the side of caution and recommend pausing until things get better.

mrtksn 4y ago

So what's the risk here? What happens if someone sees an ad for Adidas above a tweet saying some bigoted stuff? I can reason for Kanye being dropped by the brands after saying unhinged things, as they directly engage with him but in the context of web advertisement what is the mechanics of unrelated content damaging the brand?

kristintynski 4y ago
The damage of a screenshot of the ads next to horrible shit going viral. Many brands probably also have concerns about potential subconscious impacts of the association, even if they would be hard to measure. Brand teams at big companies, especially those in regulated industries, are incredibly risk averse. With Twitter typically being a small minority in a marketing mix, there’s a quickly diminishing benefit to sticking it out. Add in a buggy ad platform that can steal your money? Lol nope.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Here is a quick screenshot I just took of Casio watch ad delivered by Google on a very popular Turkish website founded by ex Microsoft engineer displayed next to the topic of "Elon Musk getting rid of the Twitter managers of Indian origin" https://i.imgur.com/eO8uvsl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/eO8uvsl.jpg The content is similar to right-wing Twitter, someone says how the Woke are letting Indians replacing the whites of America and the others reply to these with counter claims. Typical alt-right BS is everywhere and this is just one example from a recent popular topic. The website is pretty much what Musk promised for free-speech: Anything legal goes. Of course a lot of anti-govt stuff is removed all the time because, Turkey. But stuff like this stays and all kind of brands have no problem advertising here. The website is alive and well since 1999 and the founder is very well known person who moved to California for good(probably was afraid from the Turkish govt, they were arresting media bosses all the time). My point is, that brand safety stuff might not be absolute. I get your reasoning but that reasoning doesn't seem to apply everywhere and I wonder why Twitter wouldn't get an exception too.
  - kristintynski 4y ago
    I think it would have to be an exceptionally good ad platform for most brands to look the other way. It’s never been a great performer and has historically had way fewer advertisers than Facebook.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    > brand safety stuff might not be absolute What you're missing is that Twitter is not a top-tier advertising channel. They are a very distant 3rd behind Facebook and Google and getting worse by the day. So it's not like advertisers are desperate to run ads on Twitter. In fact it has been the opposite. Twitter had to go out of their way to convince advertisers to come e.g. brand safety teams, account managers etc. And now that those teams are gone the status quo is actually for advertisers to not run ads.
- Balgair 4y ago
  There's a small personal side too. No one likes to see the packaging that their team spent months making splattered in a mud puddle.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Because the juxtapostion of the ad with the offensive content makes it look like the advertiser endorses the content. Which in a sense they do because they're paying to keep the lights on.
- csande17 4y ago
  > Because the juxtapostion of the ad with the offensive content makes it look like the advertiser endorses the content. This isn't the case, not really. No one believes that Henry Ford has personally reviewed and approved every social media post that has an ad for Ford trucks next to it. That's just not how online advertisements work. (Consider that Gmail shows ads in your inbox, and that doesn't mean Ford is reading your mail.) But activists and old-media and the like have managed to convince a lot of advertisers that it is the case. This happened relatively recently; the YouTube "ad-pocalypse" is less than ten years old. It'll be interesting to see how this perception changes in the future.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > No one believes that Henry Ford has personally reviewed and approved every social media post that has an ad for Ford trucks next to it. Because he died in 1947?
    - csande17 4y ago
      Among other reasons!
  - threeseed 4y ago
    You have this completely backwards. Advertisers are the ones with the power here. It is their money and there is a wide array of choices for them to spend that money. And they have made clear over many years that brand safety is important to them. So if Twitter doesn't want to listen to them then they will suffer not the advertisers.
    - csande17 4y ago
rsynnott 4y ago
I believe Twitter "ads" are mostly promoted tweets; people can _reply_ to them. That's a significant risk. (Incidentally, I just went to twitter to try to confirm my impression that they're always/nearly always interactive... It's no longer serving me ads. A couple of days ago it was at least showing me ads for online gambling and GPT-3-looking spam articles...)

kristintynski 4y ago

Also, many larger companies advertise on Twitter simply to cover all their bases. If Twitter becomes an advertising pariah, higher ups are going to be asking the marketing team to justify staying. Given the mediocre ROI of Twitter ads in general, I think we will see many marketing heads err on the side of caution and recommend pausing until things get better.