Facebook's parent company meta announcing that beginning
January 19, advertisers will no longer be able to
target users based on sensitive categories such as ra
ethnicity, political affiliatio religion nor sexual
orientation. The move is a dramatic change from the
company's business model the last 17 years. Although
Ceo Mark Zuckerberg insists that despite the changes
the company's mission remains t same, it is time for
us to adopt a new company brand to encompass ever
that we do, to reflect who we are and what we hope to
build. Our mission remains the same still about
bringing people together our apps and their brands.
They're not changing either. And we are still the
company that designs technology around people. All
right, joining us now for some more insight on Meadows
advertising strategy changes ceo of marketing,
consultancy agency, very sunny worldwide. Abe Kosovo.
Hey, welcome back to Morning rush. What does all that
we just reported mean to the average consumer Well, I
don't really think there's anything going to change on
the advertising side. I think that advertisers are
still going to be able to target audiences by location
Uh I think what Mark Zuckerberg is talking about is
micro targeting, which is very, very valuable to
advertisers. Right So advertisers can still target
audiences by location. They could still use their own
consumer list to upload into facebook and target folks
and they can also send ads to people with similar
characteristics. So, um, I thin this is a good faith
effort by um, by facebook, but it remains to be seen.
I'm not sure if anything changes here. So we know that
it is big business advertising is big business for
Facebook. I believe they get 98% of the revenue from
advertising. So do you think they're going to find
financial success by excluding some of these more
sensitive categories and advert Well, I I think
this is, you know, facebook is front running the 2022
anticipating 2024 elections. Um I think they're on the
hot seat. So Mark Zuckerberg basically said that
2019 he anticipated that the 2020 20 political ad spend
is roughly around 200.5% Of Facebook's 90-95 billion
dollar revenue from advertising So I don't think
that's going to hurt him much in terms of advertisers
themselves. They're not going to change their behavior.
The audiences on Facebook, they're going to stay on
Facebook. And it's also the organic side of the house.
The content side of the house is not going to change.
So I'm not sure that this is not going to hurt Facebook
at all financially. What do you mean when you say
they're targeting the 2024 elections in terms of trying
to wait this thing out Well, I,I think that right now
Facebook's on the hot seat in Washington. Uh it's on
the hot seat in virtually every capital around
world because of what happened with the whistleblower
And so uh you know, Twitter in 2019, banned all
political advertising. This is way to me for Facebook.
And again, you know, the announcement just came out
yesterday. I want to dig dig more into it. But this is
a way for facebook to sort of put the regulators at bay
a little bit to say, hey, we're doing something abou
this. But it's an incremental move. It's not a total
move to remove this information and stop micro
targeting from an advertising perspective window
dressing. That's what it sounds like you're saying.
Yeah. So basically you're sayin that all of this is
being done ahead of EU regulations and, and that's
really what this is all about. Absolutely. I think
facebook does a masterful job in, in look, you know, uh,
a whistleblower comes out all of a sudden facebook's
offline, right, whistleblower c out and all of a
sudden we're changing our name. Facebook. Really let
facebook could be a great space. It could be a force
for good. But right now this information that that
that's on the, that's on the platform is very
concerning, not just to politicians, it is concerning
to advertisers, but advertisers aren't going to move
away because there's a financial incentive to be on
there. Has this worked. You say the chattering class
felt this was largely an effort to distract and you,
you talked about regulators. Um but I don't hear much
from Congress that was quite a show they put on with
Francis Hogan since then, it seems like it's in the
distant rear view mirror. So has their strategy work
dave well, I I think that Senator Klobuchar and Sena
Cotton have come together the last couple of weeks and
I think that those folks are moving too are moving a
little bit faster than facebook is anticipated. So
perhaps we're not hearing about some of the movement
publicly, but there is movement within Washington, not
just to look at facebook, but to look at big tech in
general. The other thing this doesn't address or I have
not seen it and maybe I missed it. But this doesn't
address the facebook audience network, meaning those
ads that chase you around the internet once you, you
know, visit facebook and and you you pick an interest
and then you're on another webs So I have to take a
look at that and see what that means because I'm not
sure if that's included in this move by facebook. Uh,
we're out of time, but I wanted to share some poll
numbers with you which just came out from site X saying
that almost half of respondents polled said that th
name change did nothing to change public perception. So
there is that all right, Caswell We appreciate yo
time this morning. It's always great seeing you. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Thank you