Facebook Loses Advertisers
Yesterday, reports surfaced that stated two advertisers, Vodafone and First Direct, had pulled their ads from Facebook upon finding out that the ads were placed on entries that have been underwritten by the British National Party.
This raises concern in the advertising world over the social networking site’s ability to have any control over randomized ad placement. This also increases speculation that firms may hesitate to do saturation advertising with such sites that have high traffic volume, but are supporting user-generated material.
Both of the companies were put off by the ads appearing in areas that did not line up with their “values and identity,” according to First Direct’s Rob Skinner.
Vodafone is willing to reinvest in “similar advertising” as “more robust controls” are developed and employed.
Reader Comments.
Surely these ads being randomly shown on BNP pages is similar to the existence of Vodafone in a world where the BNP also exists? By ‘more robust controls’ I presume that Vodafone mean censorship? Or do they specifically want to exclude BNP members from owning one of their mobiles? Do they do a background and character check on anyone using their service? Or do they just want to play lip-service to ‘political correctness’ whilst blaming someone else for the fact that someone spun the story to make it look as though Vodafone were sponsoring the BNP in some way? Either way, I am awaiting a day when the BNP somehow have fewer rights to express themselves than anyone concurring with the ‘Vodafone theory of acceptable political views to be expressed in public.’.
The BNP are vile, but opposing freedom of speech and expression are more vile, and if companies are prepared for knee-jerk reactions against one obviously contentious organisation, I hope that they are ready for a world where only people who conform to their ‘ideal customer’ blueprint will buy their products.
BTW I include any company with similar views in this – I only referred to Vodafone specifically because they were the ones who came up with the ‘more robust controls’ comment.
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