Unilever, one of the world’s biggest advertisers, has announced that it is considering pulling its ads from Facebook and Google in a bid to avoid platforms that “create division”.
The consumer products multinational, which owns brands PG Tips and Lynx, Persil, Ben & Jerry’s, does not want its ads appearing on platforms that promote hate or fail to safeguard customers.
Unilever is the world’s second biggest marketing spender, behind Proctor and Gamble. This past year the company spent #6.8bn marketing its own brands.
Chief marketing officer Keith Weed stated in a speech in the annual Interactive Advertising Bureau that “as one of the largest advertisers in the world, we can’t have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online”
Transparency and responsibility
Pot went on to say that the company did not need to continue to support a digital supply chain that, while responsible for delivering a quarter of their company’s advertisements, “is little better than a swamp in terms of transparency”.
He went on to state that the attempt to clean up the digital distribution chain will resemble the procedure that Unilever went through as it attempted renewable sources because of its ingredients and materials. The business has made cuts to its own advertising production to decrease costs. This involves cutting the number of ad agencies it works with to some 1,500 that is humble.
Craig Tuck, Managing Director, UK, at RhythmOne, said:
“Various social giants have been publicly scrutinised for serving ads against improper content recently and Unilever is another illustration of a new reviewing their strategy to ensure they remain trusted. When trust is in question, customers revert to their network .
“74 percent of sharing action takes place across email and instant messaging, so using the resources to analyse this trend properly will be increasingly important. Digital brand safety is a remarkably intricate area — and yet one that we have invested heavily in, as we all feel it’s going to be an integral area that advertisers look at when allocating their media spend ahead.”
Andrew Morsy, UK Managing Director at Sizmek, said:
“Unilever’s warning into the big tech giants seeing ad spend highlights what’s most likely the single most significant challenge for our industry – the requirement for change in regards to transparency.This isn’t the first story we’ve seen about huge advertisers threatening to pull advertising budget over concerns around secrecy, fake news and brand safety. Due to their dominance within the advertising market, the ‘duopoly’ has an even greater obligation to ‘serve and protect’ the customers, in addition to brands advertisements together. But they’re not the only ones – that is problem that all of us in the advertising tech arena need to focus on.
“Basically, as Unilever has revealed now, advertisers need transparency when it comes how much they are spending, to whom spend is going and where ads are being placed. There is aspotlight on spend and ROI today for several brands and this just comes in empowering agencies and advertisers with increased visibility, performance and control over their media planning and buying.”
