Spirits giant Diageo said Saturday it would suspend paying ads globally beginning in July on “big social networking channels.”
The company, popularly known for the manufacturing of Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, said it will “continue to discuss with media partners how they will deal with unacceptable content.”
Diageo is the latest significant advertiser to make such an statement following a boycott that originated with Facebook which is now targeting other sites on social media. Coca Cola has announced on Friday that it will suspend ads on all social networking sites globally, while Unilever is avoiding advertisements on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter in the U.S. before Dec 31.
Over 160 retailers including Levi’s, Patagonia, REI, Lending Club and The North Face have declared their plan to participate after a coalition of companies called for Facebook advertisers to suspend their ad expenditure throughout the month of July, according to a ongoing list from Sleeping Giants.
The companies said they’re still requesting Facebook to more strictly police hateful speech and deliberate misinformation by having to take a set of measures, such as creating a “separate moderation pipeline” for users who say they have been targeted because of their race or religion, or allowing advertisers to see how often their advertisements appeared close to content that was subsequently removed for misinformation or hate, and to allow them refunds for those adverts.
Last year, through its millions of marketers, Facebook pulled in $69.7 billion in ad sales worldwide. So although some of them order Facebook expenses far larger than most, it will require a broad collective withdrawing expenditures to render much of a financial dent.
Yet the financial dent is not the ultimate target, Sleeping Giants mentioned that.. it’s about a much wider discussion range concerning the lack of tolerance of hatred and misinformation on the web. Advertisers don’t want to sponsor lies or violent, bigoted content.’
Found this interesting? Share!
and then