General Mills, Audi and Pfizer join growing list of companies pausing Twitter ads

General Mills, Pfizer and Volkswagen are among a growing list of brands concerned about executive departures and Elon Musk’s plans for content moderation.

Elon Musk has been working to reassure advertisers that the Twitter platform will remain a safe place for brands. Picture: Jim Watson/ AFP

Food maker General Mills, Oreo maker Mondelez, Pfizer and Volkswagen are among a growing list of brands that have temporarily paused their Twitter advertising in the wake of the takeover of the company by Elon Musk.

Some advertisers are concerned Mr Musk could scale back content moderation, which they worry would lead to an increase in objectionable content on the platform. Others are halting their ads because of the uncertainty at the company as top executives exit and Mr Musk considers a raft of changes.

Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokeswoman for General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios and Häagen-Dazs, confirmed the company has paused Twitter ads. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” she said.

General Motors paused its spending on the social-media platform last week.

Several ad buyers say they expect the number of brands pausing Twitter ads to rise. They say that the platform isn’t considered a must-buy for many advertisers, with far larger budgets going to tech giants such as Google and Meta Platforms, and that pausing makes sense during the bumpy transition under Mr Musk.

Many executives on Madison Avenue are uneasy with the rash of sudden executive departures from Twitter’s advertising sales and marketing units.

While digital advertising has been up-ended by automation, which allows companies to buy and sell advertising using technology, the business is still heavily dependent on the relationships between ad-sales executives and advertisers.

Mr Musk has been working to reassure advertisers that the platform will remain a safe place for brands. Since tweeting last week that Twitter “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape”, the billionaire has participated in several meetings and video calls with some of the world’s largest ad companies and blue-chip advertisers.

On Wednesday, Mr Musk participated in a video call with WPP, the world’s largest ad company, and some of its clients such as Coca-Cola, Unilever and Google. During the meeting, Mr Musk stressed that Twitter would be a safe place for brands, promising to rid the platform of bots and add community-management tools.

He also discussed how he was seeking to segment the content on Twitter so users could customise what shows up in their feeds. That would allow people to have the equivalent of a PG-rated version of the platform, Mr Musk said, and give advertisers the ability to choose which content to be near.

Twitter already gives advertisers tools to help ensure their ads don’t appear next to content they deem objectionable, although some ad buyers say the company trails its competitors in that area.

During the virtual meeting, Mr Musk spoke frankly about what he sees as Twitter’s problems in areas from engineering to security.

Mr Musk has indicated he is leaning toward creating an $US8-a-month subscription program for Twitter. In the meeting with advertisers he said subscribers would see fewer ads. Advertisers tend to favour having fewer ads in content because it allows their ads to resonate better with consumers.

Meanwhile, Publicis Groupe, an ad agency giant that works with companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and Samsung Electronics, is expected to host a one hour video meeting for its clients soon with Mr Musk. according to an email the agency sent to its clients.

Some ad agency executives said they would welcome any improvement to Twitter under Mr Musk, who has proved to be a successful businessman. The company relies on ads for most of its revenue, but accounts for only about 1.1 per cent of US digital ad-spending, according to Insider Intelligence.

The Wall Street Journal