Why didn鈥檛 these companies know they were advertising on Breitbart?
Food manufacturer Kellogg鈥檚 will join a growing list of companies that are taking steps to block their ads from appearing on Breitbart News, after pressure from social media users.
The site, formerly edited by President-elect Donald Trump鈥檚 campaign chair and chief strategist Stephen Bannon, is a popular media platform for the 鈥渁lt-right,鈥� a white supremacist movement. The site regularly features articles with a racist, misogynist, anti-Muslim, or anti-Semitic bent.
鈥淲e regularly work with our media-buying partners to ensure our ads do not appear on sites that are as a company,鈥� Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg鈥檚, told the Associated Press. 鈥淲e recently reviewed the list of sites where our ads can be placed and decided to discontinue advertising on Breitbart.com. We are working to remove our ads from that site.鈥�
Other companies to cut ads on the site include insurance company Allstate, Internet service provider EarthLink, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, online glasses retailer Warby Parker, and the San Diego Zoo.
The fact that many of the companies apparently didn鈥檛 know that their ads were appearing there seems to highlight how new ad technologies have loosened companies鈥� grip over their brand鈥檚 associations.
Companies usually buy ads for 鈥� such as those that feature news content 鈥� rather than for specific sites, as McClatchy notes. And while companies can filter out sites considered objectionable for one reason or another, 鈥渞etargeted ads鈥� that follow users around the web from one site to another are especially susceptible to popping up in places that companies might otherwise avoid.
鈥淚t becomes a lot easier for buyers to over where their ads run,鈥� Ari Paparo, chief executive officer of online inventory bidder Beeswax, told Digiday.
鈥淎 marketer may use a whitelist or a verification vendor to protect against running on objectionable sites, but it is an inexact science," he said. "A site that is offensive but not obviously a hate/porn/illegal site might pass unless someone is specifically looking to block it.鈥�
Both Allstate and Warby Parker said that they didn鈥檛 know their ads showed up on Breitbart.
鈥淲arby Parker from Breitbart News Network directly,鈥� said a Warby Parker spokeswoman. 鈥淚f one of our ads appears on a Breitbart site, it鈥檚 due to a sale through third-party ad networks or ad exchanges. We are looking into actively blocking our ads from appearing on Breitbart News Network.鈥�
Other companies, of course, are less upset to see their products associated with a news site that drew in 19.2 million unique visitors in the United States in October. Nissan, for example, said in a statement to Bloomberg that its ads appearing on Breitbart were 鈥�,鈥� adding that it had 鈥渘o plans to change the advertising mix at this time.鈥�
Breitbart, which and other discredited far-right ideologies, released a statement to the Associated Press that condemned Kellogg鈥檚 decision.
鈥淜ellogg鈥檚 decision to blacklist one of the largest conservative media outlets in America is economic censorship of mainstream conservative political discourse,鈥� it said. 鈥淭hat is as un-American as it gets.鈥�
