Marketing in the News

Elon Musk has been making quite a ruckus lately advertising X at the DealBook conference as the next big thing. I took a bit of a different approach as anything he says can often be seen as a marketing campaign in itself. I also started to wonder if brands exposed themselves to some risk by advertising on there. I noticed the algorithm picked up on my love of tech but it also seemed trigger happy to advertise odd weapons like katanas and tasers.

To better understand this, I found an article. It discusses the rise of brand risk on twitter. If I were to boil this down into 3 digestible points it would be:

·         Elon Musk sucks because he made policy changes and laid off the content moderation team

·         Brand verification (blue checkmark) was a hot mess

·         Companies need to be proactive in removing impersonators and possibly pausing ads on X

The value proposition of X is pretty clear here. It’s a very popular online service that allows the sharing of content/ideas globally. Specific to marketing, you can target specific audiences and gather feedback in real-time on your products and services. You can pretty much cut out focus groups as you have the globe as your feedback loop.

I personally think X is going through a bit of a crisis management as there’s a new CEO that isn’t the most liked person in the world. I think he was fairly polarizing in his response telling marketers to go F themselves during his X marketing campaign. Nonetheless, users still use the platform and brands are still marketing on it. This additional article helps break down the context around the marketing mishap.

The risk management article explains how there is often inappropriate content being shown alongside ads and that brands should be aware that consumers cannot just turn a blind eye. To solve this, the article suggests just pausing running ads on twitter. I don’t think this is a great long term solution as marketing on X can be very cost-effective for brands. It also doesn’t give them a different social media platform to market on.

The article goes on to explain how the blue checkmark used to give brands credibility on the X platform. How when you interacted with a brand with a blue checkmark, they were verified to be authentic. Now with the new paid system, it opens brands up to impersonators who can possibly damage the brand you curated.

I don't think Elon Musk talking down to advertisers was a great marketing move. Considering all of the problems the transition has brought, it creates an inauthentic brand image for X. I think in this case, he went for the wrong kind of transparency. I don't know any buyers who would align their persona with possible hate speech. If I were him, I'd stay away from doing interviews and focusing on how they can create a brand safe part of twitter. I think giving the advertising agencies more control over the content they are sandwiched between is also a great move.