Facebook ad boycott gains steam
Major brands swear off Facebook advertising for July, writes Kurt Wagner.
Several major apparel brands have promised to pull advertising money from Facebook as part of a coordinated campaign to pressure the social media giant to crack down on hate speech and misinformation amid nationwide civil rights protests and the leadup to the United States presidential election.
Civil rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change, launched the campaign last week, asking marketers to boycott Facebook ads for the month of July, an effort they’re calling Stop Hate for Profit.
The group says that Facebook, which brings in almost all of its revenue from advertising, makes money off user posts that include hate speech, racism and misinformation.
A few large marketers were quick to jump on board. Outdoor apparel brand The North Face on June 19 tweeted ‘‘we’re out,’’ and confirmed to Bloomberg that it has pulled ad spending for the main Facebook social network and its photo-sharing app Instagram until August.
Recreational Equipment Inc, known as REI, which also sells sporting gear, and Upwork, an online marketplace for freelancers, joined the boycott that afternoon.
On June 21, Patagonia also pledged an advertising pause. Earlier this week, outdoor outfitter Arc’teryx said it would halt Facebook spending at least until the end of July, followed closely by popular icecream maker Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, part of Unilever.
The six companies have more than 19 million combined Facebook followers, and more than 13 million on Instagram.
Still, many small businesses, which make up the bulk of Facebook’s advertisers, likely can’t afford to pause spending on the social network, their main online outpost for reaching local customers – a sign of the company’s strength in the digital ad market.
‘‘We deeply respect any brand’s decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information,’’ said Carolyn Everson, vice-president of Facebook’s Global Business Group.
For years, Facebook has been the target of politicians and nonprofit groups seeking to challenge the company’s power over user data and speech content.
Despite previous ad boycott efforts, and a #deletefacebook trend online in early 2018, Facebook’s revenue and user growth numbers have never been seriously impacted by user or advertiser protests. Since 2016, when Facebook’s policies became the centre of debate after foreign interference efforts during the US election, the social network’s revenue has jumped by 150 per cent to more than US$70 billion (NZ$109b) in 2019.
It’s possible the latest boycott will be the first to gain any real traction. Civil rights protests erupted in hundreds of cities across the country last month after the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
Many companies, including Facebook, have donated money and issued statements of support for racial justice groups.
‘‘It’s obviously a cultural moment of pain,’’ said Steve Lesnard, VP of marketing at The North Face, who said the company made the decision in ‘‘hopes that Facebook will provide stricter rules’’.
But support of the boycott also signals support for groups that started it, like the NAACP. ‘‘We believe that normal is not good enough and we all need to drive positive change immediately,’’ Lesnard added.
Civil Rights groups have taken issue with Facebook for years. The Menlo Park, California-based social network enabled voter suppression efforts against African Americans in 2016, they said, and then named The Daily Caller, a Right-Wing outlet with ties to white nationalism, as one of its formal fact-checking partners.
Most recently, Facebook left up posts from President Donald Trump threatening protesters that ‘‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts,’’ a phrase with ties to a pro-segregation presidential candidate.
Employees at Color of Change, a civil rights nonprofit helping lead the boycott, have phone calls set up with advertisers in hopes of encouraging them to halt spending. ‘‘It’s not the time for statements of support that are just ‘Black Lives Matter’ and don’t come with real change,’’ said Jade Magnus Ogunnaike, the group’s senior campaigns director. ‘‘Now it’s time to change rules and behaviours.’’
It’s unclear how much money any of the brands that committed to the boycott spend on Facebook advertising or if others will join them in holding back.
While more large companies may pause spending, many small businesses, which make up the majority of Facebook advertisers, may not have that luxury. Shutting down Facebook advertising for a month, even for a cause they believe in, would pose a serious threat to online commerce brands
in particular, many of which rely on Facebook ads to drive the bulk of their sales, according to multiple ad buyers.
Many smaller media buyers, who spend tens of millions of dollars a year on Facebook ads instead of hundreds of millions, first heard about the boycott from Facebook itself.
The company sent its media partners an email last week acknowledging the boycott, and highlighting much of the work Facebook is doing around identifying hate speech using algorithms and defending election integrity, including a new goal to register 4 million voters ahead of the US general election. ‘‘We remain open to meeting any of these organisations and welcome feedback on the issues they have raised,’’ the email read.
Facebook investors, meanwhile, don’t seem concerned that big brands are throwing their names and dollars behind the boycott.
Deutsche Bank’s Lloyd Walmsley, an analyst covering Facebook, said that while he’s heard from many advertisers worried about marketing on social media given the current environment surrounding the protests, he doesn’t anticipate Facebook suffering any kind of long-term business harm.
– Bloomberg