Ad for VanMoof bike unfairly discredits automobile industry, says watchdog
A TV commercial for a Dutch-made bicycle has been banned by France’s advertising watchdog for creating a “climate of fear” about cars.
Despite being aired on Dutch and German television, the Autorité de régulation professionnelle de la publicité (ARPP) said the ad for the VanMoof bike unfairly discredited the automobile industry.
Continue reading...‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign gathers momentum as ad boycott spreads outside US
Almost a third of advertisers are considering joining a month-long boycott of Facebook as the social network struggles to convince advertisers that it is doing enough to fight hate speech on its platform.
The unprecedented corporate snub has been revealed in survey by the World Federation of Advertisers, whose big-spending members control nearly $100bn (£81bn) in spending.
Continue reading...The social network’s crisis has been a long time in the making and shows no sign of going away
It took less than two hours for Facebook to react and it did so for good reason.
At 5pm on Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all adverts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US.
Continue reading...Service adds to firms shunning Facebook over refusal to act against Donald Trump posts
The messaging service Viber, the fifth biggest with more than a billion users around the world, is severing all ties to Facebook as part of a growing boycott of the company by commercial partners.
The campaign, initially started in the US after Facebook’s refusal to take action against posts from Donald Trump which critics said incited violence, has now grown to become an international movement.
Continue reading...The Apprentice host is partner in firm whose teeth-whitening product he recommended
A tweet by Lord Sugar promoting a company set up by a winner of The Apprentice has broken the UK advertising rules.
In December, the 73-year-old host of the BBC television show posted a tweet encouraging people to buy a teeth whitening package as the “perfect Xmas gift”.
Continue reading...Alphabet first-quarter earnings offer a glimpse of how the digital ad market has fared amid stay-at-home orders
Google reported its weakest revenue growth in nearly five years in the first quarter as the pandemic-driven recession began to shrivel its advertising sales.
“It was the tale of two quarters,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, told investors on a conference call on Tuesday. Typically – strong revenue growth in January and February was undercut by a “significant and sudden slowdown in advertising” in March, he said. “When I last spoke with you, no one could have imagined how much the world would change – and how quickly.”
Continue reading...Mandatory code being developed by ACCC will create ‘level playing field’ in media landscape, Josh Frydenberg says
Facebook and Google will be forced to share advertising revenue with Australian media companies after the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, instructed the competition watchdog to develop a mandatory code of conduct for the digital giants amid a steep decline in advertising brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
In its response to the landmark digital platforms inquiry in December, the federal government asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to develop a code between media companies and digital platforms including Google and Facebook.
Continue reading...BAT seems to be running accounts to promote e-cigarettes after crackdown on hiring influencers
British American Tobacco (BAT) is marketing e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes with pictures of attractive models and using hashtags such as “I dare you to try it”, despite a crackdown last year after it paid social media influencers to promote its products.
BAT had come under fire after hiring young models to sell its products despite having an explicit policy banning under-25s from appearing in adverts.
Continue reading...Consumers told soap could tackle the deadly virus
Household brands’ mascots have undergone a makeover ahead of International Women’s Day
He’s the jolly bearded Father Christmas lookalike who for decades has dominated the seas – and our TV screens – as the familiar face of Birds Eye frozen fish fingers.
But with a handful of fellow male advertising mascots Captain Birds Eye has been temporarily elbowed aside – and replaced with a more youthful female equivalent – in a new drive to highlight the lack of women fronting some of the UK’s top household brands.
Continue reading...Successful Snowflake campaign has helped military hit annual target for first time in six years
Army recruiters have conceded it will take several years to get the British army near to full strength despite the perceived success of its Snowflake ad campaign, which has helped it to reach its annual target for the first time in six years.
Enlisting had collapsed after recruitment was part-privatised in 2012 when Capita partnered the army but new figures showed that 99% of the year’s 9,440 target had been signed up with seven weeks to go.
Continue reading...Move follows efforts to reduce carbon footprint and increase reporting on climate crisis
The Guardian will no longer accept advertising from oil and gas companies, becoming the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels.
The move, which follows efforts to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and increase reporting on the climate emergency, was announced on Wednesday and will be implemented with immediate effect. The ban will apply to any business primarily involved in extracting fossil fuels, including many of the world’s largest polluters.
Continue reading...Avaaz says firms are unaware commercials being played alongside misleading videos
Some of the biggest companies in the world are funding climate misinformation by advertising on YouTube, according to a study from activist group Avaaz.
The group found that more than 100 brands had adverts running on YouTube videos on the site that were actively promoting climate misinformation. The brands, including Samsung, L’Oreal and Decathlon, were unaware that their adverts were being played before and during the videos.
Continue reading...Pop star reprises Neighbours character in a song that also includes tennis star Ash Barty, comedian Adam Hills and former cricketer Shane Warne
A new $15m tourism campaign featuring Kylie Minogue is aiming to lure Brexit-weary Britons to Australia with the perennial promise of cute marsupials, white-sand beaches and locals who “speak your language”.
The three-minute musical advertisement aired on televisions in the UK before the Queen’s message on Christmas Day, with Minogue and another well-known Australian export, Adam Hills, addressing the nation from Sandringham – a beachside suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
Continue reading...US presidential hopeful says fossil fuel firms will be free to promote themselves while critics are barred
Twitter’s plan to ban all political advertising risked muzzling climate activists while giving polluters free rein to promote themselves, the US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said.
“Twitter’s new ad policy will allow fossil fuel companies to buy ads defending themselves and spreading misleading info but won’t allow organisations fighting the climate crisis to buy ads holding those companies accountable,” she tweeted, linking to an environmental newsletter.
Continue reading...Halloween promotion was not intended to be ‘insensitive reference’ to historical events
McDonald’s in Portugal has apologised for using the slogan “Sundae Bloody Sundae” in a Halloween campaign for its ice-cream puddings.
It appears the chain decided to celebrate the spooky season with a two-for-one offer on the strawberry dessert and a nod to the early U2 song Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Continue reading...As the concept of philausophy is unleashed on an unsuspecting world, please share your views on the good, the bad and the frankly odd campaigns in Australian tourism history
The word “philausophy” did not exist until Wednesday and, depending on its reception, may not exist for much longer.
The latest international campaign from Tourism Australia has landed, with its awkward, crow-barred pun already dividing audiences in the same way that it inelegantly divides the word “philosophy” itself.
Continue reading...The four men behind the nationwide Brexit billboard phenomenon finally reveal their identities – in the pub where it all began
The Birdcage pub in Stoke Newington, north London, seems an unlikely birthplace for a rebellion. On a midweek afternoon, the bar is almost empty. Spring sunshine streams through the windows; Spandau Ballet provide a gentle soundtrack; black-hatted men from the local ultra-Orthodox Jewish community pass by outside.
The only customers are four men sitting at a table in an alcove. It was at this spot, more than five months ago, that this group of friends came up with an idea born from their collective despair over the “lies, lunacy and hypocrisy” of the Brexit process.
Continue reading...Obria Group’s ads suggest it provides abortion services, when in fact it tries to persuade women not to terminate pregnancies
Google has given tens of thousands of dollars in free advertising to an anti-abortion group that runs ads suggesting it provides abortion services at its medical clinics, but actually seeks to deter “abortion-minded women” from terminating their pregnancies.
Related: Abortion: judge strikes down Kentucky restriction but governor to appeal
Continue reading...In the genealogy company’s commercial, a white man gives a black woman a ring and says they can ‘escape to the north’
Ancestry.ca, the Canadian outpost of the genealogy site Ancestry.com, has taken down an ad that was criticized for appearing to romanticize slavery. It was deemed an irresponsible retelling of an already reprehensible history.
ooooh my god LMAOOO who approved this ancestry commercial??? pic.twitter.com/Isy0k4HTMA
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