Facebook is increasing revenue despite over 1000 'advertising boycotts'

by Isriya Paireepairit

While there are campaigns around the world to boycott Facebook ads, it turns out that Facebook's advertising revenue is increasing despite the large number of boycotting ads.

Facebook hate-speech boycott had little effect on revenue-Axios
https://www.axios.com/facebook-hate-speech-boycott-had-little-effect-on-revenue-15984194-124e-41e0-821b-cc3a1b29e28d.html

Facebook Ad Boycott News: Companies That Spent More on Advertising – WWD
https://wwd.com/business-news/media/facebook-ad-boycott-news-companies-that-spent-more-on-advertising-1203691270/

'Facebook earns money by neglecting hate speech,' and boycotts ads on Facebook in June 2020. ' Stop Hate for Profit ' #StopHateforProfit The campaign has happened. This campaign has spread all over the world, and large companies such as Coca-Cola and Unilever announced that Facebook ads have been suspended. Over 1000 companies are in favor of this campaign.

What's happening with big companies like Coca-Cola and Unilever have stopped advertising on Facebook one after another? -GIGAZINE

However, I think that Facebook will suffer a business impact due to the suspension of advertisement placement by companies, and the earnings report for the second quarter of 2020 (April to June) announced on July 31 It was discovered that it was 18,877 million dollars (about 1,953 billion yen) that exceeded the forecast of. Total revenue increased 11% year-on-year, and daily active users also increased 12% year-on-year.

Facebook's advertising revenue and users are increasing with the new corona pandemic-GIGAZINE

Facebook's Chief Financial Officer David Weiner announced that 'the top 100 advertisers on Facebook accounted for the second quarter's total revenue' was 16%, lower than the same period last year. This means that the boycott has actually left big companies.

Despite the departure of large corporations, revenue grew 10% year-over-year in the first three weeks of July, when the boycott was in full swing.

Facebook adjusts the ad price automatically, and the unit price drops when there is excess inventory space. Large companies have other means of advertising, but there are many small and medium-sized businesses all over the world that depend on Facebook advertisements, and when the advertisement unit price drops, those small and medium-sized businesses judge that it is “at the time of buying”. It will start delivering advertisements on Facebook. This mechanism completes the ecosystem that even if a big company boycotts, it does not affect the advertising revenue of Facebook as a whole.

Some companies, such as Ben & Jerry 's for ice cream, plan to continue the boycott campaign in the future, but many companies consider the boycott to be a 'temporary suspension of advertisement placement' and resume the placement after August. It seems to do. In fact, it was reported that Facebook thought in early July that 'the brand that boycotted the ad would soon return to Facebook.'

Facebook expects advertising revenue growth for the rest of 2020, but that doesn't mean the boycott was meaningless. The boycott continues to put pressure on Facebook, and COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a statement that ``we fully agree with the idea that we don't want to hate on the platform. And we are against hate, we haven't benefited from hate speech, and we have never had it. Users don't want to see hate and advertisers also want to relate to hate. I don't think so.'