They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But if the scuffle between high-profile advertisers and social media platforms over hate speech is anything to go by, the days when that was true may be over. Coca-Cola, Unilever and Starbucks are threatening to pull advertising from platforms such as Facebook and Twitter unless they curb hateful content. This means trouble: Facebook’s share price fell 9 per cent on the news.
But with corporate advertising budgets under pressure because of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s tempting to be cynical. Why might big companies have chosen this of all moments to weaponise advertising spending to achieve moral objectives? Bad publicity is undesirable, but zero publicity is hardly better.
Withholding advertising constitutes a self-sabotaging act that plays directly into the hands of competitors and against shareholder interests. As companies’ advertising costs shrink, so does their capacity to pick up market share. Boycotters that already have strong brands might be able to fend off challengers for a while but, in the long run, there’s no scenario where an activist advertising strategy complements an overall profit-maximising objective.