Elon Musk promised advertisers he’d keep Twitter from turning into a “free- for- hellscape.” This week, advertisers are beginning to demand details on how he plans to uphold the commitment.
A media buyer at one major announcement agency, who declined to be named for fear of reprisal, said the agency would meet with Musk this week to ask how the Tesla principal superintendent plans to fix down on misinformation on the social media platform.
The buyer also wanted to know how Musk’s pledge squared with his own conduct, including one tweet over the weekend that spread a conspiracy proposition about the attack against US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hubby Paul.
Other motifs include Musk’s plan to raise the cost of Twitter’s subscription service and serve” half as numerous advertisements,” and who’ll serve as advertisers’ point of contact after a procession of elderly directors, including Twitter’s announcement chief, left the company since he took over.
The agency’s top guests are anticipated to join the meeting, the media buyer said.
Neither Twitter nor Musk incontinently responded to a request for comment.
After twittering in 2019 about his dislike of advertising, Musk is now under pressure to avoid alienating the advertisers who contribute further than 90 of its profit. He’s spending his first week as CEO in New York, with adventure commercial musketeers joining him in meetings to assure companies that contribute further than$ 5 billion annually to Twitter.
Jason Calacanis, an angel investor and podcast host who’s aiding Musk in his first week of power, twittered on Monday that Twitter had a” veritably productive day” of meetings with advertisers and marketers.
Another media buyer who spoke with Reuters said their agency won’t meet with Musk until he articulates a direction for Twitter or provides a substantial update on how the platform will serve advertisers.
Some guests have formerly begun to break announcement spending on Twitter this week, said the alternate media buyer, who declined to name the advertisers as the source wasn’t authorized to do so.
The buyer said some guests had formerly pulled out of Twitter due to the months-long chaos around the deal, and some in response to enterprises about child sexual abuse material on Twitter.
IPG, an advertising holding company that represents major guests including Coca- Cola and American Express, has advised guests to break their Twitter advertisements for the coming week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Indeed as Musk took meetings with major agencies and advertisers this week, he took to Twitter on Wednesday night with a bean asking druggies whether advertisers should support freedom of speech or “political correctness.” Of further than one million votes, 80 answered “freedom of speech.”
“Those type of provocations aren’t helping to calm the waters,” the media buyer said.
Further marketers also took to LinkedIn to state their enterprises about Musk’s preemption of the platform.
“Unless Elon hires new leaders committed to keeping this ‘free’ platform safe from hate speech, it’s not a platform brand can/ should announce on,” said Allie Wassum, global director of social and intertwined media for Jordan shoe brand, which is possessed by Nike, in a post on Linkedin.
Wassum didn’t respond to a request for farther comment.
