Tag Archives: Twitter

How Many Lost Advertisers Does It Take To Screw Twitter?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Joe Mandese’s MediaPost column, when I came  across this item about Twitter, consumer brands, and public opinion.

While its new owner Elon Musk has blamed pressure groups — as well as advertisers themselves — for discontinuing advertising on Twitter, half of American consumers believe it was the right thing to do since he acquired the company and began making it an even more toxic place for brand marketers and consumers alike.

According to a survey of 500 U.S. adults fielded by Pollfish  on Tuesday, 49% agree with the decisions of big brands to halt their Twitter ad spending, while 27% said they do not agree with their decision and 24% said they’re not sure.

Seeing as how Twitter has normally gotten about 90% of its revenue from ad sales, that’s gotta leave a mark, eh Doc?

– Tweet Dreams

Dear TD,

Yeah, that survey just adds insult to (financial) injury.

Start with Musk’s whining about activist groups pressuring advertisers to ghost Twitter. As CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Jonathan Vanian have reported, Musk claims that a coalition of activist groups “broke an agreement with him by encouraging companies to halt advertising on Twitter.”

Here’s the dispute in a nutshell, compliments of Patrick W. Watson.

As the CNBC piece noted, those activist groups actively disagree.

Derrick Johnson, CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in response to Musk’s claims on Tuesday that the civil rights groups “would never make such a deal” and that “Democracy always comes first.”

“The decisions being made at Twitter are dangerous, and it is our duty, as it has been since our founding, to speak out against threats to our democracy,” Johnson said. “Hate speech and violent conspiracies can have no safe harbor.”

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Free Press, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center all say ditto.

So there’s that.

And then there’s this, according to NPR’s Halisia Hubbard.

Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says

Half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the website. A report from Media Matters for America states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020 and more than $750 million just in 2022.

Seven additional advertisers have slowed their advertising to almost nothing, according to the report, which was published on Tuesday. These companies have paid Twitter more than $255 million since 2020.

And perhaps the unkindest cut of all for our very own Muskie Muskrat is this Joe Mandese post at Red, White, and Blog.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei: Musk Won’t Own Twitter Much Longer

If the voice of the people really is the voice of God — as Elon Musk keeps tweeting — then he won’t own Twitter much longer.

According to a survey conducted by Pollfish for MediaPost on Tuesday, most American adults do not believe Musk will even own Twitter more than a year.

While a third believe he will own the social media platform a year or more, most consumers believe it will only be “a few months” or “until something else catches his fancy.”

So, will Musk and Twitter crash and burn?

Maybe even prob-a-bool.

Is Elon Musk a Twit Who’ll Drive Tesla’s Stock Into a Ditch?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and tooling around the interwebs, when I came across this Reuters piece by Lauren Silva Laughlin and Gina Chon.

Elon Musk probably won’t buy Twitter

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Four years ago, Elon Musk vowed to set up a peanut brittle company to take on Warren Buffett’s iconic U.S. confectioner See’s Candies. Then he changed his mind. It wouldn’t be surprising if Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy social network Twitter went the same way.

Sure, the Tesla boss was clearly serious about acquiring Twitter as of recently. The financing from Morgan Stanley is shored up. The agreement includes a fee of $1 billion that he – or Twitter – would have to pay if they renege on the contract. And Twitter’s lawyers even wedged in a so-called “specific performance” clause, which could theoretically force Musk to buy the company if he threatens to back out, though in practice this could probably be settled by adding to the break fee.

There are good reasons for him to get cold feet . . .

What do you think, Doc – could Elon have actually musked this up?

– ElonGate

Dear ElonGate,

Let’s check in with Felix Salmon at Axios Capital, who ties Musk’s Twitter bid to his Tesla stock.

Tesla’s stock could fall much further

The recent decline in Tesla stock, possibly caused by worries about Musk’s successful bid for Twitter, has raised concerns that he barely has the liquidity to raise the $21 billion he needs to provide in cash to pay for his new platform.

By the numbers: If you exclude stock that Musk has pledged to secure loans, the value of his freely-sellable Tesla shares is only about $11 billion. In order to find the extra $10 billion, he might have to exercise some of his stock options. That’s expensive, since he’d need to pay income tax, rather than lower long-term capital gains tax, on such sales.

  • What goes down can go down much further: Tesla stock is about 33% below its all-time high. Yet Facebook has performed much worse than that, while rival electric carmaker Rivian is down more than 80%.

A continued decline in Tesla shares could cause margin calls and a lot of forced selling by Musk, which in turn would tend to drive the stock lower still.

The Doc’s diagnosis: Elon definitely might musk everything up.

Your tweet goes here.

Why Is a U.S. Senate Candidate Burning the Confederate Flag and a Blunt in His Ads?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading the Washington Post when I came across this piece by Julian Mark.

A U.S. Senate candidate smoked marijuana in his last campaign ad. This time, he burned a Confederate flag.

Last month, Gary Chambers drew attention for sparking up a marijuana blunt in a political campaign ad. Now the Democrat from Louisiana is getting attention for sparking up something else: a Confederate flag.

The new ad shows Chambers, who’s running for U.S. Senate, dousing the flag in gasoline in slow motion and setting it ablaze as he denounces what he describes as systemic inequality among Black Americans and argues that “remnants of the Confederacy remain.”

“The attacks against Black people — our right to vote and participate in this democracy — are methodical,” Chamber says in the one-minute video released Wednesday, adding: “Our system isn’t broken; it’s designed to do exactly what it’s doing, which is producing measurable inequity.”

What the heck, Doc – isn’t the U.S. Senate supposed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, not its most flammable?

– Burn Noticing

Dear Burn,

Let’s look at those two ads, shall we?

Here’s the one Chambers released last month, which runs for 37 seconds and notes that every 37 seconds someone is arrested for possession of marijuana.

 

 

According to the Post, that video has racked up 6.7 million views on Twitter.

Two days ago Chambers released Scars and Bars, which quickly got one million views on Twitter and over 300,000 looks on YouTube.

 

 

That’s some crazy-pants stuff for a U.S. Senate race, but maybe that’s what it takes for a badass Black candidate to get any traction in Louisiana, a state so backward its unofficial slogan is “Thank God for Mississippi.”

(To be sure graf goes here)

To be sure, the Doc has roughly the same chance of beating incumbent Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-Who Else Ken I Insult) as Gary Chambers does.

But it will be a helluva lot more fun watching Chambers try to take that peckerhead down than anything the Doc might concoct.

Stay tuned for further details.

What’s Up with the ‘Appreciative New Yorkers’ Bloomberg Brownnose Ad?

by Campaign Outsider

DrAdsforProfileWell the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

Say, that’s some magnificent ad on the back page of Saturday’s New York Times A-section, yeah?

In case you missed it:

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-21 at 1.47.36 PM

 

Is that a beautiful record of accomplishments for a man to leave behind or what, Doc?

– Mickey B

Dear Mickey B,

Yeah, whatever.

First thing – all those boldface l‘s in the ad above? They’re not there in the print version.

Not to mention the ad overall is the worst piece of typesetting this side of Shakers, Glendale.

Representative sample:

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-21 at 1.51.15 PM

 

Do we have a double-f problem here or what?

Regardless, let’s look at the content of the ad close-up.

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-21 at 1.48.27 PM

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-21 at 1.49.12 PM

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-21 at 1.49.59 PM

 

As for those Appreciative New Yorkers, here’s what you get at #appreciativenewyorkers on Twitter, and here’s what comes up on Facebook (i.e. nothing).

Of course, there’s always appreciativenewyorkers@gmail.com.

Which the Doc assumes consists of one Michael Bloomberg.

Until proven otherwise.

Yo.

What’s Up with the ‘Reform Government Surveillance’ Ad?

by Campaign Outsider

DrAdsforProfileWell the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

I don’t read the New York Times much (I’m a Washington Post kind of guy), but I happened upon Monday’s edition and here’s what I saw.

 

Picture 3

 

That’s some Murderers’ Row, eh? But don’t you think there’s a big name missing? I’m talking about a company that collects mountains of information the government could find useful in determining what people might do next, or what like-minded people already have done.

See where I’m headed here, Doc?

– Jeff B

Dear Jeff B,

The Doc feels your pain. We’ve never gotten over losing the Acting Surgeon General gig to Rear Admiral (RADM) Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H., who’s a total hack.

Still, we’re not really sure you fit into the picture painted by Monday’s, er, Washington Post.

Big tech companies lash out at government snooping

NSA Surveillance-Tech.JPEG-0bd40

WASHINGTON — Silicon Valley is escalating pressure on President Barack Obama to curb the U.S. government surveillance programs that vacuum personal information off the Internet and threaten the technology industry’s financial livelihood.

A coalition that includes Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft lashed out in an open letter printed Monday in major newspapers and a new website, http://reformgovernmentsurveillance.com .

Twitter Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and AOL Inc. joined Google Inc., Apple Inc., Yahoo Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in the push for tighter controls over electronic espionage. The group is immersed in the lives of just about everyone who uses the Internet or a computing device.

Oh, wait – you’re also “immersed in the lives of just about everyone who uses the Internet or a computing device.”

But you’ve been marginalized like some Mom ‘n’ Pop-Up site.

Hah!

Anyway, the bottom line is this: The tech giants are urging the government to stop glomming onto the megadata they mine.

They want it all for themselves.

Yo.