Recovery Of Donald Trump's Facebook Account Will Not Affect Advertisers

JAKARTA - The potential return of former US President Donald Trump to Meta Platform Inc.'s Facebook and Instagram is unlikely to change how advertisers spend money at the world's second-largest digital advertising company. This was said by an advertising agency executive, in response to Meta's decision to reinstate Trump's account which has been banned since 2021.

But this is good news for Meta whose shares have halved over the past year amid slowing ad spending as many brands cut their marketing budgets in response to historical inflation.

In a blog post on Wednesday, January 25, while announcing the reinstatement of Trump's account, Meta said that Trump would face "higher penalties for repeated offenses." Facebook, banned Trump two years ago after he praised the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

While Meta's closely watched deliberations on whether to reinstate Trump's account will be polarizing, ad buyers say the broad reach of the platform, which has 3.7 billion users, is too important for many businesses.

"Character polarization exists across all platforms. It's a moot point when brands need to drive sales and signups," said Darren D'Altorio, head of social at ad agency Wpromote who works with brands such as Whirlpool and TransUnion.

According to D'Altorio, Trump's recovery of accounts reinforces long-standing concerns about how social media platforms can ensure that their ads don't appear alongside content marketers deem inappropriate.

Civil rights groups including the NAACP and GLAAD criticized Meta's decision last Wednesday.

In July 2020, thousands of advertisers boycotted Facebook as part of a rights campaign to pressure the platform to do more to prevent hate speech, but the boycott had little impact on the company's revenue.

"Trump's influence has waned since leaving office, and may be one of the reasons why clients don't ask about the impact his return to Facebook has on their advertising," said Erica Patrick, senior vice president of paid social media at Mediahub IPG, which has contracts with Netflix and Western Union.

In November, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, also lifted the platform's permanent ban on Trump accounts.

Many of Twitter's top advertisers halted their spending after Musk took over Twitter and quickly laid off thousands of employees and oversaw a botched verification feature that allowed fraudsters to impersonate publicly traded companies.

According to the Standard Media Index, ad spend on Twitter slumped in the last two months of 2022, which measures ad spend based on data from advertising agencies.

Yvonne Williams, vice president of media at Code3, which counts Tiffany & Co. among its clients, said the brand would be watching closely to see how Meta would "monitor (Trump) and adhere to the rules they have."