Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company recently became one of many large companies that have pulled their ads from Facebook for the month of July in a stand against hate speech, misinformation, and discrimination on the social media site. In a recent interview with WSB-TV, Dr. Timothy Halloran, senior lecturer of Marketing at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business discussed the effect this is having on companies, consumers, and the social media giant.
Why are companies doing this?
“You're making a statement to your consumer base that you’re not going to tolerate the policies that Facebook has,” said Halloran. He added that companies like Starbucks, Microsoft, and Target have already pulled ads and more will follow. These companies are attempting to inform customers that they don’t approve of Facebook enabling its platform to be used to spread and amplify racism, misinformation, and hate speech.
How will consumers and companies be affected?
According to Halloran, Facebook users will be seeing fewer ads in their news feeds. Consumers of social media are used to interacting with ads they like or don’t like and when a corporation pulls their ads, the consumer will see less of them.
For some companies, a lack of engagement may mean less revenue. “It’s going to affect the companies because they want you to engage with their messages,“ he said. He continued. “You can see consumers engaging by liking, commenting, and sharing and that’s going to hurt depending on how your customer’s engagement impacts how much they buy from you.”
How will this affect Facebook?
Halloran is confident that the actions of these companies are having a significant effect on Facebook. According to Halloran, 98 percent of Facebook’s revenue comes from ads. “I think we’re definitely going to see some changes in Facebook as a result of this,” he stated.
Watch Dr. Halloran’s WSB-TV interview.
