[kristintynski]

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?

[kristintynski]

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]

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]

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.

[Balgair]

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.

[mrtksn]

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

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.

[threeseed]

> 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.

[kristintynski]

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.

[UncleOxidant]

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]

> 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.

[threeseed]

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]

I'm not sure you replied to the right post. I'm not saying advertisers don't have power. I'm saying advertisers' opinions about brand safety don't reflect the real world, those opinions were formed relatively recently, and they might change their minds again in another few years.

If it helps, the situation is similar to Donald Trump's presidency. The man had power, but he frequently made poor decisions based on his incorrect beliefs.

[lapcat]

"Replies to our posts with hardcore antisemitism and adult spam remained up for days even when flagged."

This seems like a serious concern.

Twitter advertisers never had control over the tweets that an ad appears between. That's pretty random. But the replies to promoted tweets are different matter, and they stick to the ad wherever it's seen.

[threeseed]

> I'm saying advertisers' opinions about brand safety don't reflect the real world

It reflects their world view which is all that matters when they hold all the cards.

And not sure where you are getting the idea brand safety is a recent concept. According to this [1] aligning content and brand has been an issue for over 70 years.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/05/19/...

[lapcat]

> 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]

Among other reasons!

[Rebelgecko]

If United Airlines ads show up during a 9/11 documentary, the brand doesn't necessarily care that its their fault for buying ads on keywords like "New York flights". A screen shot will end up on Reddit regardless making fun of the juxtaposition regardless. Even even if Mr. United himself wasn't involved with the placement.

[timeon]

> Henry Ford

Not sure if Henry Ford who was spreading antisemitic hoaxes is good example here.

[rsynnott]

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...)