Posts Tagged: advertising

Walmart says it’s no longer advertising on X

Walmart has seen enough from X. The retailer, America’s single biggest employer and largest company by revenue, told Reuters on Friday it’s no longer advertising on the platform formerly known as Twitter. The departure follows owner Elon Musk amplifying antisemitic posts and flinging expletives at fleeing advertisers. “We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson told Reuters.

Walmart’s exit adds to a growing list of companies that have pulled ads from the platform. Apple, Disney, IBM, Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery are among the businesses no longer buying ads on X. A group of advertisers told The New York Times on Thursday their temporary pauses will likely become permanent. “There is no advertising value that would offset the reputational risk of going back on the platform,” Lou Paskalis, CEO of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory, told the paper.

X’s former advertisers had no shortage of reasons to jump ship. Musk’s latest series of self-inflicted wounds began when the billionaire appeared to endorse and amplify a post falsely claiming Jewish communities were stoking hatred against white people. Musk replied to the user who spewed the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, saying their comments reflected “the actual truth.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 29: C.E.O. of Tesla, Chief Engineer of SpaceX and C.T.O. of X Elon Musk takes the stage during the New York Times annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023 in New York City. Andrew Ross Sorkin returns for the NYT summit for a day of interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris, President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-Wen, C.E.O. of Tesla, Chief Engineer of SpaceX and C.T.O. of X Elon Musk, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and leaders in business, politics and culture.  (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images

Watchdog group Media Matters then published a report showing ads from well-known brands placed next to antisemitic content. X responded by suing the organization, accusing it of “knowingly and maliciously [manufacturing] side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content.”

Musk’s attempt to smooth things over only made things worse. After apologizing for amplifying the antisemitic content at The New York Times’ DealBook event, he told advertisers backing off of the platform to “Go fuck yourself.” His company now potentially stands to lose $ 75 million.

Walmart employs around 1.6 million people in the US. The retailer made $ 611 billion in revenue in the 2023 fiscal year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/walmart-says-its-no-longer-advertising-on-x-215940504.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

GM suspends advertising on Twitter to evaluate its direction under Elon Musk

General Motors has temporarily stopped paying for advertisements on Twitter after Elon Musk closed the $ 44 billion deal to take over the website, according to the CNBC. Musk, as you know, is also the chief executive at Tesla, which overtook GM and all its competitors to become the most valuable carmaker in the US a couple of years ago. The company told the news organization that it’s engaging with Twitter to understand its direction under its new owner. Further, it said that it’s normal for the company to pause paid advertising in the face of a “significant change in a media platform.”

GM said in its emailed statement:

“We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership. As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.”

Over the past couple of years, the company had broadened its commitment to providing consumers more EV options in an effort to better compete with Tesla. The automaker announced an investment of $ 35 billion for its combined EV and self-driving development efforts in 2021. Earlier this year, the company also revealed that it’s building a third Ultium factory in the US that will make batteries for its electric vehicles. 

Shortly after he officially took control of Twitter, Musk posted a message to advertisers on his account in a bid to ease their concerns. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong,” he wrote. He also said that advertising, “when done right, can delight, entertain and inform you…” For that to be true, “it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs.”

Here is Musk’s complete statement:

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Apple reportedly tested search ads in Maps in bid to expand advertising business

Apple may be planning to bring ads to more of its first-party apps. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company has conducted internal tests of a version of Maps that features search ads. Apple already employs similar advertisements within the App Store.

Developers can pay the company to get their software to show up at the top of the search results page when you input specific terms. Gurman suggests search ads in Maps would work in much the same way. For instance, a Japanese restaurant could pay Apple for their business to show up higher in local listings when people use search terms like “sushi.” Gurman believes Apple could implement similar ads in its Podcasts and Books apps. He says the company could begin offering an ad-supported tier through Apple TV+.

Gurman attributes the potential push to Todd Teresi, the vice president in charge of the company’s advertising division. Teresi recently began reporting directly to services chief Eddy Cue and has reportedly talked of greatly expanding his team’s impact. The division generates about $ 4 billion in annual revenue. Teresi’s ambition is to increase that number to the double digits. That would require a significant expansion of Apple’s current advertising efforts.

A wider advertising push would be an about-face for a company that has, at least externally, positioned itself as a champion of user privacy. With the release of iOS 14.5, Apple introduced a feature called App Tracking Transparency. The prompt allows you to prevent apps from logging your activity across other apps and websites. In 2022, it’s estimated the policy will cost Facebook parent company Meta approximately $ 13 billion in lost revenue. When Apple announced ATT at WWDC 2020, the company publicly said it designed the feature to protect user privacy. A recent report from The Wall Street Journal, which said the company pursued a revenue-sharing agreement with Facebook, suggests its motivations with ATT may have not been so altruistic.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

AT&T will stop advertising its 5G Evolution product but the 5GE icon is sticking around

When is 5G not 5G? When its AT&T’s 5G ‘Evolution’ that is actually just plain old LTE and was simply a mechanism to keep its subscribers from jumping ship to other carriers with an actual, if tiny, 5G network. AT&T’s 5G Evolution was displayed as the ever-so-slightly misleading 5GE icon, which eventually led to the […]

Come comment on this article: AT&T will stop advertising its 5G Evolution product but the 5GE icon is sticking around

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