Half of Elon Musk’s 100 largest advertisers have reportedly stopped placing ads on its platform 25 days after the company bought Twitter, according to market research firm Media Matters.
Media Matters says the 50 companies have contributed close to $2 billion in ad revenue to Twitter since 2020, with $750 million invested this year alone.
Companies such as Chevrolet, Ford and Chipotle have publicly announced that they have stopped advertising on Twitter, and Media Matter says other advertisers have quietly pulled out because its analysis of Pathmatics data shows that these companies have stopped advertising for a long time.
Media Matters says Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and Meta have also all canceled their Twitter ad budgets. The company believes that these companies opted out of Twitter because of “direct publicity, controversy and warnings from media buyers.
Mars Candy clarified that it first suspended advertising on Twitter in late September before Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company.
It was previously reported that Elon Musk had held a virtual conference call after completing the acquisition to try to reassure advertisers about the safety of Twitter.
On Nov. 11, GroupM, the world’s largest ad buyer, designated Twitter as a “high-risk” advertising platform and warned clients that it was not recommended to buy ad space on the platform.
Advertisers’ concerns were reportedly further heightened after the departure of Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and security. Roth had tried to assuage advertisers’ concerns about disinformation and hate speech on the Twitter platform.
GroupM was also concerned about people impersonating companies’ brands, as the $8 Twitter Blue subscription service allows anyone to get a blue label.
Nintendo and McDonald’s have both been impersonated, and someone posing as the pharmaceutical company Lilly said, “Insulin is now free.”
Elon Musk then suspended the paid verification feature and will not reopen it until he is confident enough to fix the problem.
Writer Stephen King also mocked on Tuesday, “It won’t be long before My Pillow is the only advertiser left on Twitter.”
My Pillow is a company led by Mike Lindell, a supporter of former President Trump.
Twitter has not yet commented.
