Offensive Facebook Posts Force Brands to Drop Ads

Recently Facebook faced what some described as a “watershed” moment for the company. The Financial Times reported that advertisers such as Nissan and Nationwide, as well as a number of smaller brands, chose to pull their advertising from the social networking site after their ads were placed next to offensive posts and images. The exodus came as a result of the #FBRape campaign led by Laura Bates, founder of “The Everyday Sexism Project", asking Facebook to change its advertising policies. Complaints on twitter followed as embarrassing screenshots of ads appearing on the social networking site next to misogynistic content, including images of abused women, were circulated.
This highlights some serious issues for Facebook’s targeted advertising, which put simply, targets users believed to be most likely to buy a product based on their likes and other profile information. Ads are placed on pages wherever the user goes and for Facebook on which there are nearly 100bn pages, the majority of which are user generated, this represents a huge policing issue. Until there is a sound technological solution the likelihood is that incidents like this will continue to happen.

The Brand Response
The contrasting response to the brands involved highlights how important swift corrective action can be. Nationwide, Nissan and many of the smaller brands were lauded for immediately cancelling their Facebook advertising until the issue is resolved. On the other hand, Santander, who were slow to react, faced criticism and even pledges from consumers to switch their banking over to Nationwide! More extremely Dove the skincare brand, have faced a heated backlash from consumers (examples below) for not pulling their Facebook ads completely.

 

From a media agency perspective it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Dove who have limited control over the actual content their ads are placed next to. Most of the blame should sit with Facebook, firstly for allowing the offensive content on the site and secondly for the poor control over where ads are placed.
Having said that, I can’t help but feel surprised that Dove, which prides itself on empowering women and “inspiring inner beauty” refused to pull its ads completely.  In my opinion Dove should have been the first to cancel their advertising. They missed an opportunity to lead the condemnation of the content in order to turn a bad situation into something more positive.
As for Facebook, if they want to continue growing their advertising revenue, to improve on the $1.46 billion revenue figures announced in Q1, then they need to start taking a lot more responsibility for their content and advertising controls.

Written by Peter Barnes, Account Executive