By Suzanne Vranica
Unilever is threatening to pull back its advertising from
popular tech platforms, including YouTube and Facebook, if they
don't do more to combat the spread of fake news, hate speech and
divisive content.
"Unilever will not invest in platforms or environments that do
not protect our children or which create division in society, and
promote anger or hate," Unilever CMO Keith Weed is expected to say
Monday during the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual
leadership meeting in Palm Desert, Calif.
"We will prioritize investing only in responsible platforms that
are committed to creating a positive impact in society," he says,
according to prepared remarks.
Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, is leveraging
its spending power to push the digital media industry to weed out
content that funds terrorism, exploits children, spreads false
news, or supports racist and sexist views. The consumer products
giant spent 7.7 billion euros ($9.4 billion) marketing its brands
such as Lipton, Dove and Knorr last year, according to the
company's annual report.
In the wake of 2016 election, Google's YouTube, Facebook and
other tech companies have come under intense scrutiny for allowing
the spread of misinformation -- criticism partly fueled by evidence
that Russian actors used their platforms to disseminate information
designed to manipulate U.S. voters. Meanwhile, YouTube has taken
plenty of heat for running ads alongside extremist, racist and
hateful videos, forcing brands to suspend advertising on the site.
Most recently, brands were discovered to be appearing next to
videos that seemed to attract pedophile viewers.
This is about "having a positive impact on society and whether
we as a company want to engage with companies that are not
committed to making a positive impact," Mr. Weed said in an
interview.
Unilever has been among the more outspoken advertisers pushing
for the online ad industry to clean up the ad fraud that exists on
the web and also offer up stronger measurement standards to ensure
that advertisers are buying ads that can be seen by real
people.
While the company continues to push for those initiatives, Mr.
Weed said that consumers don't care about online advertising
measurement issues. They do care about "fake news" and "Russians
influencing the U.S. election," he added.
Rather than issue a public list of demands, Mr. Weed said he
wants to work privately with the tech companies to come up with
solutions. Unilever has already held discussions with companies
such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap and Amazon to share ideas
about what each can do to improve.
The tech companies had already been trying to rectify some of
their problems. Facebook recently announced major changes to its
algorithm intended to address concerns over the quality of the
content on its site and its effect on the world. Meanwhile, YouTube
has made improvements to the technology it uses to screen videos,
added more human reviewers and given marketers more control over
where their ads appear.
Mr. Weed said he is encouraged by the recent moves, which he
describe as "meaningful," but said more work is needed. For
example, he said YouTube hasn't done enough to protect
children.
Last month, YouTube said that it would have humans review every
second of video that is included in its Google Preferred program,
which is a subset of YouTube videos that are among the most popular
and which marketers pay a premium to advertise alongside.
"I believe they should still go further and human screen all
videos with children that are monetized," he said during the
interview.
In regards to Facebook, Mr. Weed said the company has taken some
positive steps at trying to alleviate the fake news issue, but
there is "more to do."
Mr. Weed said that advertisers need to be outspoken about issues
on tech platforms, since they are almost entirely supported by
billions of ad dollars.
"One can start by not putting ads on content we do not want to
encourage, " he said.
The annual conference for the IAB, an online advertising trade
body, has become a platform for big-name advertisers to publicly
push for change.
During last year's conference, Procter & Gamble, the world's
largest advertiser, issued an ultimatum to digital giants to clean
up online advertising. P&G's chief brand officer, Marc
Pritchard, laid out a list of demands that included the sector
adopt one viewability standard and allow an independent measurement
watchdog to audit some platforms' ad metrics. He later also
demanded that tech companies such as YouTube come up with greater
controls around their content to avoid having ads appear near
controversial content such as ISIS videos.
A year after "the gauntlet was thrown, the progress has been
impressive, " said Mr. Pritchard in a recent interview. He said 90%
of his demands have been met and the company is just waiting for
the Media Rating Council to finish auditing some of the ad metrics
of Google and Facebook.
Write to Suzanne Vranica at suzanne.vranica@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 11, 2018 20:37 ET (01:37 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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