Unilever N.V. (NYSE: UN), one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world and a trusted advertiser, is threatening to teach the likes of Facebook and Google a stern lesson: a complete boycott.
If the tech giants don’t work faster and more diligently at ridding their platforms of extremism, hate speech, and fake news, Unilever will pull all advertising — a potentially huge blow to the popular social networking sites and a threat that it shouldn’t take lightly.
Unilever is particularly disturbed by ads that have been showing up in videos on Google-owned YouTube that sexualize and exploit children. It’s also concerned with the propensity of ads all over the internet for promoting illegal content and creating division in society.
The company owns everything from food brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Hellmann’s, Bertolli, and Lipton to personal hygiene brands like Dove, Vaseline, Axe, and St. Ives.
On Monday afternoon at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, California, Unilever’s chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, formally threatened to pull the company’s advertising from certain online platforms.
The company is the world’s second-largest advertiser, just behind Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble makes the other half of virtually everything that Americans consume, like Crest, Herbal Essences, Dawn, Charman, and Mr. Clean — just to name a few.
“Unilever will not invest in platforms or environments that do not protect our children or which create division in society, and promote anger or hate,” Weed stated. Before his address, a copy of his speech was released to news outlets like the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal to compound the effect and seriousness of the message.
Unilever is also committed to tackling gender stereotypes in advertising and will only partner with organizations that are committed to creating better digital infrastructure for the masses.
Whether or not the company will actually pull any ads remains to be seen, but threats from Unilever shouldn’t be taken lightly — and for good reason.
Unilever spent $9 billion globally on advertising last year. And with more of those dollars moving into the digital space, Big Tech will have to depend heavily on those billions if it wants to keep growing.
Google and Facebook are estimated to have taken half of the online world revenue in 2017 and more than 60% in the U.S.
But Unilever has already been slashing its advertising spending while it seeks to cut costs across the organization. It’s cut the number of ads it makes and the number of agencies it works with.
In his speech, Weed called for the technology industry to improve its transparency and consumer trust in an era of fake news and “toxic” content. In his chastising speech to Big Tech, Weed went on to state:
As one of the largest advertisers in the world, we cannot have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online.
And we cannot continue to prop up a digital supply chain—one that delivers over a quarter of our advertising to our consumers—which at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency.
We heard language similar to this not too long ago. Remember the Logan Paul YouTube scandal from earlier this year? While in Japan, the social media sensation filmed and uploaded a video to YouTube that showed the body of someone who had committed suicide in Japan’s “suicide forest.”
YouTube, as punishment, temporarily suspended ads on Paul’s channel. But it’s not just Paul who’s causing headaches and bad publicity for these platforms. Advertisers are increasingly concerned with being associated with internet influencers who thrive on all forms of trickery and deceit.
In some cases, kids are being tricked into watching disturbing videos that are marketed as being child-friendly. And in other cases, platforms like Google and Facebook are notorious for being key drivers in spreading fake news and manipulative ads. Do Russia and the 2016 U.S. presidential election ring a bell?
YouTube has attempted to address its political problems by posting a notice to its American users when they watch state-sponsored propaganda like Kremlin-funded RT — formerly known as Russia Today. But so far, it hasn’t instituted similar warnings for other propaganda platforms.
Facebook has also had its fair share of problems involving financial scams, especially when it comes to get-rich-quick schemes like certain questionable cryptocurrencies.
Late last year, the European Commission warned Facebook, Google, and even Twitter that it would seriously consider legislation if self-regulation continued to fail.
And at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, Prime Minister Theresa May of the U.K. urged investors to put pressure on Big Tech companies to respond more quickly to extremist content on their social networking platforms.
In response, Google has since announced that it would dedicate over 10,000 employees specifically to eliminating extremist content on YouTube throughout the year. And Facebook has said it would be using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect images, videos, and text related to terrorism.
Both Facebook and Google reportedly said they were heeding Unilever’s warning to improve the industry.
Long story short? The internet’s largest platforms are a mess, but a company like Unilever might actually force companies like Google and Facebook to finally get their act together.
But if they continue dragging their feet about bringing about the change that Unilever is demanding, it could spell detrimental things for our favorite social media platforms.
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today