
Unilever is latest brand to boycott Facebook - klelatti
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/26/883941796/unilever-maker-of-dove-soap-is-latest-brand-to-boycott-facebook?t=1593203268423
======
ajb
What's interesting here is that these big brands see Facebook advertising as
non-essential to their business. I suspect a large part of Facebook's market
cap may rest on the assumption that it's an essential advertising outlet. If
so, the knock-on effect of this would be much larger than just the loss of
revenue, hence Zuckerberg rushing out a response.

~~~
dmarchand90
I'm not sure if it necessarily means Facebook is non-essential. This actually
makes me think social media has entered a deep stage of maturity. Anyone else
here remember how advertisers were primary regulators of content on TV? That
unusually offensive content was avoided out of fear that companies would pull
their commercials? I think we see the Facebook has now entered this stage.

~~~
foolmeonce
It's an interesting perspective, yet a TV a ban on 1 show or network was
pretty limited for the advertiser since there was proper regulation on media
at the time. I.e. dropping the most popular news program still left you with
~50% reach in the same category on the other 2 networks.

An advertiser dropping a major tech company today is refusing to be seen in
all social contexts of one type, or all searches, etc.

If advertisers go ahead with this on a permanent basis it is a very
interesting message, and I think we don't know so much about this since our
past regulations were really based on outcomes with individuals and small
companies as the victims of bad markets.

------
ve55
It's interesting that no advertisers had even a hint of concern when informed
about the massive privacy invasions, many of them highly illegal, that
Facebook performed for a profit.

~~~
cortesoft
This is because not enough people were actually upset about that... there are
enough people upset about the latest rounds of scandals that advertisers are
deciding it is worth pulling advertising.

That, or they are realizing they aren't getting a good ROI on facebook ads and
figure now is a good time to pull out.

~~~
drumhead
I think the latter reason is correct. If it were an important generator of
business they would never leave. Its clearly not as valuable to them as maybe
Facebook thinks it is.

~~~
sarah180
A significant portion of advertising is about building brand identities and
associations in consumers' minds, not about driving direct sales.

This is why some companies worry so much about their ads appearing next to
objectionable content. They're not trying to get you to go buy something:
they're trying to get you to associate their brand with a certain lifestyle
and identity.

If the context changes so those associations become negative, the value of
that advertising can swing rapidly.

------
fludlight
Fox News has been the target of an ad boycott every year or two for the past
decade. They did not lead to any meaningful change.

Every time they get rid of the most egregious hosts and replace them with new
ones. The new ones start out moderate, then inevitably drift to extremism. The
advertisers have plausible deniability for half of their employees and
customers. The other half don't care or are cheering Fox.

Mutual fund companies do something similar with underperforming funds. They
cull the worst performers and the remainder make the whole fund family look
good due to the magic of survivorship bias.

Facebook is obviously drastically different than Fox. That said, they are a
large company and organizational inertia is very hard to overcome. Right now
FB is optimized to promote quantity of engagement without regard to quality.
Turning down the heat and promoting civility would result in fewer posts,
which would mean fewer ad impressions. That's not happening.

~~~
berdario
Fox News doesn't change because apparently they don't get most of their money
from advertisement, but rather from cable bundling

[https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you-
hav...](https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you-have-cable-
you-are-subsidizing-Fox-News-It-might-be-time-to-cut-the-cord-Here-s-how)

~~~
methodsignature
I'd imagine individual shows are still more wholly tied to ad dollars. Doesn't
defeat your point.

------
Vomzor
The cynic in me thinks this could be a great way to cut costs in preparation
of the Greater Depression while hiding behind a worthy PR cause.

~~~
tedivm
Unilever has made a statement saying they are shifting the money to other
advertising companies but are not planning on cutting back on ads.

~~~
AznHisoka
Did they mention who exactly?

------
npunt
Don't forget that loudly leaving and quietly returning is the nature of many
supposed changes in the world.

~~~
Jugurtha
This reminds me of congressional hearings where $tech_exec_du_jour gets
grilled publicly, and begged for funds privately.

It also reminds me of a remark from Henry Paulson about a conversation with
Barack Obama during the latter's campaign, which took place in the midst of
the financial crisis. Paulson recalls
([https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166](https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166)):

""" _He very nicely warned me: 'You better take care of the Republican
candidate because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout rhetoric from him,
I'm going to have to start talking that way'._ """

The fact I registered that nonchalant remark probably is telling of why I
wasn't drawn to operate in politics where shape shifting is sine qua non.

Speaking of Facebook, you could see Joel Kaplan, Facebook's VP of Global
Policy, also known as the guy sitting behind Zuckerberg in practically every
hearing, in some shots.

EDIT: confusing quote edited as per
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571).

~~~
netsharc
Your quoting is unparseable without watching the video...

Paulson said about Obama: "He very nicely warned me, 'You better take care of
the Republican candidate, because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout
rhetoric from him, I'm going to have to start talking that way.'."

I.e. Paulson claims Obama said the sentence starting with "You better...".

And just reading this sentence makes me wonder what the context of why Obama
said this.

------
ciarannolan
>Facebook brought in nearly $70 billion in advertising revenue last year.

What % of that was from companies that are now boycotting, including Unilever?

I have to imagine a company like Unilever was spending no small sum on
Facebook ads.

~~~
henryfjordan
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-
and...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-and-twitter-
advertising-for-rest-of-2020-due-to-polarized-atmosphere-in-us.html)

This article has some more details about some large companies spending habits
on FB ads, including this quote:

> The consumer products giant has spent more than $11.8 million in the U.S.
> this year on Facebook, according to marketing analytics firm Pathmatics.

~~~
ggregoire
Interesting chart in this article: [https://fm-
static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Ad...](https://fm-
static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Advertisers_Facebook.1593190628109.png)

~~~
elliekelly
I’m shocked a mattress company that I’ve never even heard of spends that much
on facebook ads.

~~~
divbzero
I too am surprised.

This mattress company [1] was founded in 2015 and acquired for $1.1 billion in
2017. That’s an exit comparable to Instagram in speed and scale.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_\(company\))

------
oplav
> Unilever, the maker of Dove soap and Hellmann's mayonnaise, will stop
> advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S. through the end
> of the year. The company cited a need to end divisiveness and hate speech
> during a polarized election season.

Why was Twitter included in this?

~~~
stagger87
Probably because Unilever thinks Twitter is a source of divisiveness and hate
speech.

~~~
throwaway_12351
Probably because the recession side effects are real, and advertisements are
costly.

~~~
greyswan
I would bet that marketing departments for companies like Unilever have a hard
time showing ROI on Facebook advertising. Why not get some marketing attention
for cutting your spend?

~~~
mcintyre1994
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Facebook ad that wasn’t trying to get me to do
something, to go to some page or to click through to a store full of tracking
garbage and buy something. Surely for all of those you can very easily measure
RoI?

I’d understand this argument for something like YouTube where most ads seem to
be TV style and not trying to get me to click away to buy something
immediately, but Facebook ads seem to always want me to go do something they
can trivially track.

~~~
roenxi
Advertising isn't necessarily about buying something right now. There is some
focus on building familiarity so the next time someone buys something they buy
[brand X].

The ROI of that effect is typically real, noticeable and impossible to
directly attribute.

------
TAForObvReasons
Official statement: [https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and-
features/2020/driv...](https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and-
features/2020/driving-a-responsible-digital-ecosystem-during-these-polarized-
times.html)

> Given our Responsibility Framework and the polarized atmosphere in the U.S.,
> we have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we
> will not run brand advertising in social media newsfeed platforms Facebook,
> Instagram and Twitter in the U.S.

> We will maintain our total planned media investment in the U.S. by shifting
> to other media.

~~~
redis_mlc
> the polarized atmosphere in the U.S

That's smooth.

Almost as good as MS saying they're removing update settings to 'prevent
confusion.'

------
three_seagrass
This is huge because Unilever is a conglomerate of B2C brands. Online presence
is a big budget item for them.

~~~
fludlight
Does Unilever really need to run ads on Facebook? They sell soap and ice
cream[1]. That budget would be better spent on product placement with
influencers on some type of image/video centric site like Instagram, Snap,
TikTok, etc.

Edit: Apparently they are pulling out of Instagram as well. Maybe that didn't
meet their ROI expectations?

[1] [https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/](https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/)

~~~
rglover
It's a good play. See pictures of your ex-boyfriend with his new girlfriend
and feeling a little blue? What's better than a nice hot shower and a pint of
Ben & Jerry's?

That coupled with brand recognition and I'm surprised companies don't spend
more than they do.

~~~
fludlight
Haha, I was thinking about paying users with >100k followers, not the
platform, to mention the soap tangentially or have the ice cream in-frame in a
picture supposedly about relaxing.

I'm surprised the platforms haven't rolled out scalable middleman services for
this.

------
Jedd
In 2011 I worked at a startup in the online marketing / advertising space.

It was a surreal, over-crowded, confusing, fact-light, peer-pressure driven,
mystical, big promises, metrics-resistant, yet bewilderingly optimistic market
place.

In the past decade it's gotten much, much worse.

Compare the field in 2011 [1] to now [2].

Then consider that there are people to whom all of this makes sense.

[1]
[https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_lan...](https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_landscape.jpg)

[2] [https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/04/marte...](https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/04/martech-landscape-2020-martech5000-slide.jpg)

~~~
wdr1
The image resolution on (2) is too low to clearly see everything, but it also
looks like they're including more & more (sub-?)industries over the year.

E.g., SEO wasn't included in 2011 but is in 2020.

~~~
Jedd
It's clear that there _were_ increasing numbers of sub-industries, and players
in those sub-industries, over time.

SEO in 2011 certainly wasn't nascent, but it was a bit of a black art, and not
an especially large sector.

I don't think there were (m)any that were offering exclusively SEO products --
from memory it was more of a bundled / add-on offering for other services.

------
kgin
Unilever's marketing team rightly recognizes this as a moment when temporarily
boycotting running facebook ads gains them more attention and good will for
free than their ads that were previously running on facebook did for pay.

------
MrsPeaches
> saying it profits off bigotry, racism and violence.

People in glass houses...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge)

~~~
cortesoft
If no institution that ever participated in bigotry, racism, and/or violence
is allowed to take a stand against those things now, there will be no
organizations left.

If the United States tries to pass laws against those things, are you going to
point out that the US had slavery 160 years ago? BMW made equipment for the
Nazis.

~~~
lonelyasacloud
Unilever the company that kept killing people by adding hydrogenated vegetable
fat to most of its products long after the disastrous effects of trans fats on
heart health were well known.

Unilever the company that when it finally removed the hydrogenated vegetable
oil decided to replace it with Palm Oil. Which, given the amount it uses (the
world's largest consumer) has massively contributed to the destruction of the
planet's remaining tropical rainforest.

Then we've got enormous amount of plastic pollution ...

So, is Unilever really attempting to occupy the moral high ground? Or is it
just an attempt to sell more of it planet destroying sh*t to a particular
demographic?

------
amriksohata
Hmm, welcome from Unilever, the brand that promoted the "fair and lovely"
creams in India and created a whole well-marketed industry of fair skin being
better. In which itself promoted hatred of darker skinned people.

------
throwawaysea
Note that some brands under Unilever (like Ben & Jerry's) had already stopped
their Facebook ad spend. Unilever is also only pausing advertising on these
platforms in the US.

------
sharkweek
This all has reminded me of the laws preventing big tobacco from running
television ads.

I might be getting my details crossed but remember reading all the major
cigarette brands ended up seeing this as a long term win because of how much
money it’d save them to not have to advertise through an expensive channel,
knowing their competitors couldn’t either.

I’d imagine if enough major consumer brands all sort of agreed not to compete
on Facebook ads, it might end up helping them all in the long run.

Of course prisoners dilemma and all...

------
dilandau
Just look at FB's stock over the last week. Wew lads, this is actually pretty
big. From ~245 to 215 at market close today.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
That's got more to do with the resurgence of Coronavirus cases than anything
else.

------
twirlock
This helps me out in arguments about whether a corporate priesthood is just
throwing its weight around and hiding behind moralizations to do it. Thanks,
Unilever!

------
StLCylone
Good. Facebook is just an echo chamber for hate speech and mis-information.
Looking at you high school friends.

~~~
nindalf
You think your other sources of information are better? You're sure that
Hacker News isn't an echo chamber?

~~~
xref
HN is an echo chamber on certain topics, but not on hate/racism or easily
gamed to push a mis-information agenda

HN loves:

\- LSD microdosing

\- intermittent fasting

\- Tesla

\- Mastodon

\- contrarian views to whatever the top comment is

HN despises:

\- Blockchain

~~~
anchpop
HN also has views on privacy that are not shared by most of the non-techie
population. Most people like privacy, to be clear, but would not be willing to
sacrifice as much for it as many here.

I have always found it odd that an interest in privacy would coincide with an
interest in tech.

~~~
divbzero
> _I have always found it odd that an interest in privacy would coincide with
> an interest in tech._

Perhaps knowledge of tech makes you aware of how easily it can be (ab)used to
track you and invade your privacy.

