Despite A Few Calls For A Boycott, Advertisers Know The Facebook Is Too Big To Ignore

Facebook is in the middle of a little hiccup, despite being highly-publicized, as calls for ad boycotts are spreading slowly online. However, this is nothing compared to what it faced since it launched some 16 years ago.

Kicked off and advocated by an unknown and very unpopular "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign, the movement is meant to push Facebook to better police hate speech and other content posted to and shared across the social network. However, the boycott is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on Facebook.

The biggest social media platform has faced similar efforts in the past. And it’s unclear if even the deluge of advertisers taking part in the action, which include Adidas, Ben and Jerry’s, Ford, Hershey's and 237 others as of 1 July, will have the kind of impact the delusional "Stop Hate for Profit" is seeking.

According to Regina Luttrell, assistant professor of public relations and social media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, many of the brands that initially jumped on the boycott are committed to corporate activism and want to see "true change" from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

"Investors will shy away from supporting Zuckerberg's usual avoidance of the issue," Luttrell told Yahoo Finance. "Facebook has a habit of making small changes rather than truly taking action. The latest public movement is different. We are all seeing that. Facebook needs to wake up, pay attention and make lasting changes."

It's worth noting, however, that the current economic climate is also leading to cuts in advertising spending. According to a Gartner survey of 360 marketers conducted on 27 March, 76 percent of marketing leaders expected decreases in marketing budgets due to the coronavirus pandemic.

What is more, Facebook has 8 million advertisers on its platform, which makes up the bulk of its US$ 70 billion in advertising revenue in 2019. If any kind of advertising boycott is going to have a true impact on the social networking giant, it will need to include well beyond the 242 firms currently part of the movement.

Facebook, with its 2.5 billion users, is the largest social media network in the world. And while some advertisers may feel comfortable leaving that kind of access to potential customers on the table, others won't be.

And as NYU Stern School of Business assistant professor of marketing Alixandra Barasch points out, the small advertisers that make up the majority of Facebook’s advertising partners often can’t afford to leave the social network for other outlets.

"They are not going to be able to afford any kind of mass market advertising campaign, so they can’t go to TV, and they don’t want to," Barasch explained.

"They don’t have anywhere else to go, and even the big ones, I think they are afraid right now to go in this direction or take a stand one way or the other, so they are looking for ways to sort of speak out and support something that consumers care about."

For a company that has survived scandal after scandal, whether that be the Cambridge Analytica debacle or reports that the social network was used to incite genocide in Myanmar, Facebook has continually come through relatively unscathed.