Kia and Holden lead retreat of Australian brands from YouTube as undesirable content crisis grows
After two weeks of advertisers retreating from Youtube programmatic buys in Europe and the US over fears ads are running next to offensive content, the crisis has hit Australia with Holden and Kia the first local brands to suspend advertising on the video platform.
Kia and Holden first Australian brands to suspend YouTube programmatic ads
GM Holden confirmed it suspended programmatic placement of ads on YouTube over the weekend after it became aware of its brand appearing next to controversial videos on YouTube.
Kia also suspended its advertising over the weekend and said it was now seeking clarity from Google.
“Programmatic advertising was suspended as soon as we were made aware of this particular incident. It will remain suspended until such time as we can meet with Google to further clarify the application of this type of advertising,” a Kia spokesperson told Mumbrella.
Holden said it was continuing to look into how its brand had been linked to inappropriate content and acted immediately when it was alerted.
“Holden in no way supports the content our advertising has been inadvertently associated with. We’re proud of our diversity credentials,” the company said in a statement.
“We value our good relationship with Google but in line with General Motors’ global response and Holden’s diversity stance we have instructed our media agency to suspend all advertising on YouTube until we are confident Google can protect our brand from offensive content. We’ll work with Google to achieve this.”
YouTube parent company Google has repeated its stance shared in other countries that it is working with advertisers to solve their concerns, but would not name local advertisers who were now also suspending programmatic ads on its platform.
“We don’t comment on individual customers but as announced, we’ve begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear,” the company said in a statement.
“While we recognise that no system will be 100% perfect, we believe these major steps will further safeguard our advertisers’ brands and we are committed to being vigilant and continuing to improve over time.”
Google is facing rising concerns around the globe since advertisers started question the content their ads were being placed with and the associated brand safety concerns.
The UK government and Havas in the UK led the charge and by the end of last week the concerns were being expressed by major brands in the US with the likes of AT&T, Verizon and GSK all moving to distance themselves from the platform.
Kia and Holden are the first Australian brands to confirm the suspension of YouTube ads.
Interesting as YouTube has not changed – it has always been like that but only now an issue?
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Does anyone know what the supposedly offensive content is and what it has to do with brands’ diversity stances?
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“We’re proud of our diversity credentials,” the company said in a statement, “As you can see in the ads that were pulled, we’ve featured several prominent people of colour, and at least two women, giving us AAA Diversity Credentials.”
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I had this issue during Sandyhook, when my client who sold playgrounds had ads running next to the articles. It caused a little uproar but at the end they accepted this would happen.
Arn’t these large companies slightly embarrassed that it’s taken them this long to realise programmatic has always worked this way?
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@anonymous
Totally agree. This has been the case forever and agencies would turn a blind eye because the clicks were so efficient! Furthermore, the issues at hand seem pretty small in terms of reach: “pennies , not pounds” was the response from Google UK which suggests that the spends and incidents were somewhat isolated? Sure it doesn’t make it acceptable but the irony in all this is that newspapers are going in for the so called kill – good luck. I would have thought that the phone tapping incidents in the UK were more harmful to brands? Didn’t that exec get reinstated and receive some kind of promo?
The markets don’t seem to care:
“The RBC analysts reiterated their “outperform” rating on Alphabet and their $1025-per-share price target on the stock. “Google is one of the strongest, most consistent fundamental stories in tech. Period,” they wrote.”
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It’s only taken this long because the agencies Google deals were so good they couldn’t walk away from YouTube, so they told their clients ‘she’ll be right mate, YouTube is sweet as! After all, it’s google! ”
I guess advertisers have finally grown a pair.
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how many sponsored ads played in a news feed on Facebook next to offensive material, or hate speech or fake news today? 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000? Is it less or more than YouTube? Granted people don’t watch Facebook ads for too long so there is less brand damage! But seriously, both are strong advertising platforms, however i have missed the distinction as to why Google is getting the $’s pulled but Facebook is not. Personally i feel i have far more control on YouTube when running ads for clients – i have no idea what are in people’s personal news feeds on Facebook
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Do KIA and Holden advertise in the Sydney Daily Terrorgraph? If so, I am expecting them to be pulling their spend anytime soon then! What about the Mail online?
How much of this is a play by the disrupted trying to muddy the waters and how much of this are agencies trying to claw business into their own, murky, trading desks.
Savvy clients will be rolling their eyes at the old school smearing away.
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KIA and Holden should really inspect The Australian and the tabloids from the same publisher, if they are concerned about diversity in Australia.
The recent lambasting of Richard Di Natale and highlighting that he has a ” ‘manny’ ” – why does that need to be highlighted? The Murdoch press’ smearing of the Melbourne premier who is keen to eradicate sexism in young people is also disgusting. Seriously, if you want to embrace diversity Kia and Holden then please, please, please #stopfundinghate in the Murdoch press!
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Any more news on this Mumbrella? Other sites are reporting that Telstra and Tourism Australia have pulled out?
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Hi “Update”,
You do know we can tell from your IP address who you work for, don’t you?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
C’mon Tim, where is update from? TV? Print newspaper publisher? Ad Agency? C’mon, tell us!!!!
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Hu Update Got Owned,
We only out astroturfers when they attempt to mislead people about who they are. On this occasion, it feels like they were nudging us, rather than our audience, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Well done for calling them out. Should change ‘Update’ to Weasel 🙂
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