Twitter tries to woo anxious advertisers with a slate of premium video content at the NewFronts – By Sarah Perez (Techcrunch) / May 4, 2022
Twitter returned to the Digital Content NewFronts this evening to pitch its upcoming premium video content slate to advertisers, as it had in previous years. But this time around, the company is faced with a group of media buyers who are worried about the future of the social network as a “brand-safe” platform for their marketing efforts. As various reports have noted, some Twitter advertisers have already begun planning how to stop spending on Twitter if Elon Musk’s takeover leads to the service becoming more toxic and abusive social network.
Advertisers understand that Musk’s vision of Twitter as a “free speech” platform is one that doesn’t necessarily align with their interests. Brands are historically averse to having their messages appear next to abusive and divisive speech, hate speech, and misinformation. And if Musk were to roll back Twitter’s existing content moderation controls, it could lead to an increase in the sort of content that brands like to avoid becoming more prevalent across Twitter’s platform.
In recent days, Twitter attempted to assuage advertisers’ fear by writing to ad agencies with assurances that Twitter would remain a safe place for them in the future by separating their ads from any harmful content. But businesses know that Twitter can’t make promises about changes Musk has yet to make. Twitter knows that, too — in an SEC filing this week, Twitter warned that a loss of ad dollars is one of the risk factors related to the acquisition.
