FANG Just Lost A Few Teeth

Facebook Twitter and Google as well as other large platforms have long been under scrutiny by the ad industry and the federal government for issues from influencing the election and grading their own homework to questions surrounding data security brand safety and misleading advertisersDespite all of the claims of fraud misuse of data violations of brand safety claims of violations of the US Constitution or claims that their insiders may have impacted election results Facebook and the group continue to avoid material decrease in spend by brands and agencies In fact Facebook thanks to brands and agencies who themselves vote with their investments have helped the social network to achieve value of over 1TNTo what endThe network and its photo sharing app Instagram this week experienced a sixhour outage Ironically the outage was reported by Facebook on Twitter see photoSome wonder if this outage was a result of claims made against the Facebook this week that could finally impact the bottom line of the social network and move the industry to consider changeA 60 Minutes interview with whistleblower Frances Haugen indicated that Facebook is aware of its impact on feeding hate and divisive behavior She saidamp160that while they made temporary changes during the election cycle these controls were turned off after the election claiming the social network was quotchoosing growth over safetyquotThe whistleblower also said Facebook is aware that Instagram is toxic for young girls and aware it is impacting their mental health The content makes young girls more depressedThe incentives for the network are misaligned Haugen said This is of course not a surprise The feeling of selfloathing of young women and the discourse and hate creates more impressions and those impressions create ad revenue growth in return Eyeballs revenue amp8230amp160periodFacebook responded to the claims made in the 60 Minutes report but their response seems to me to be much of the same They likely expect that this issue like most other potentially company ending issues if they were not the size they are will get wiped under the rug and go away and that advertisers will have a short hangover but then return and vote with their checkbook Only time will tellTwitter Google and Facebook especially have benefited from erosion in viewership and readership in traditional media print OOH and TV especially in the past several years Growing their user base in what many might argue are not brandfriendlyamp160nor brandsafe ways and adding addressability and measurability has fueled the growth Afterall ad revenue follows the eyeballs and accountability in most casesIssues surrounding brand safety and others like it will only increase The fact that most agencies and large brands have a quotbrand safety officerquot in my mind indicates a larger issue at handWhat do we do now We have large investments in these platforms because this is where we need to invest rightWell amp8230 no Not reallyThe writing was on the wallamp160long before this new report Despite all the warning signs and continued reports where advertisers and agencies have threatened change we have all done what was easy go back to where we believe the eyeballs are During my tenure in marketing at Microsoft I too was guilty of thisIt is time to rethink our approach Rethink what we believe is brand safe and yes follow the consumerOne of the positives of the pandemic shutdown was a material shift in consumer behavior This coupled with improvements in technology surrounding frequency management brand safetyamp160and fraud controls as well as attribution solutions that rival those of traditional digital or are arguably stronger and more believable should be a signal for changeThe shifts in behavior have fueled record growth of viewership and listening for streaming audio and TV or CTV In fact platforms from ViacomCBS Disney WarnerMedia and others hit growth numbers not expected for 5 years in less than oneThese mediums along with others like Digital Out of Home DOOH have spent the downtime improving tech targeting and accountabilityWith the scale targeting measurement accountability and brand safety measures in place now is the time to vote with our checkbooks and force some real change Who would ever have thought that we would move from digital back to new and improved traditional triedandtrue mediaamp160like OOH TV and radio Here we are and the time is now for changeClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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FANG Just Lost A Few Teeth

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Gabe Greenberg

FEMA and the Ad Council Encourage AANHPI Communities to Enhance Disaster Preparedness in New PSAs - Ad Council InSites

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FANG Just Lost A Few Teeth

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