HSY - The Hershey Company

Despite growing ad boycott, Facebook is too big for many advertisers to ignore

Despite a growing advertising boycott, many companies can't ignore Facebook.

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  Facebook Ad Boycott: All the Footwear + Fashion Brands That Have Joined

  Footwear News
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  Lego pulls ads on Facebook over 'hate speech'

  BBC

Facebook sees 250 companies participate in ad boycott

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi and Jared Blikre speak with Futurum Research Principal Analyst Daniel Newman about what the Facebook ad boycott means for the company’s revenue.

Facebook Ad Boycott Sinks Stock, Raises Pressure on Zuckerberg

(Bloomberg) -- Critics of Facebook Inc. who have assailed the social network as failing to adequately police hateful and misleading content on its service found a powerful ally Friday: Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, said it would stop spending money with Facebook’s properties this year.The decision by the maker of major consumer goods like Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise to follow other brands in an advertising boycott, prompted a rare reaction from Facebook’s investors. Shares plunged 8.3% on the news, eliminating $56 billion in market value. Unilever’s pledge applies immediate pressure on other big companies and presents a risk to Facebook’s dominant business. Later Friday, Coca-Cola Co. said it would pause ads on all social media platforms for at least 30 days, while Honda Motor Co.’s U.S. unit, Hershey Co. and several smaller brands said they would join the boycott.Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg attempted to address advertiser concerns in a live question-and-answer session with employees Friday, announcing a handful of minor changes to the company’s ad and content policies. But his remarks didn’t go far enough for critics.The Anti-Defamation League, among the collection of civil rights groups that organized the July ad boycott, called the changes announced by Zuckerberg “small.”“We have been down this road before with Facebook,” the group said in a statement. “They have made apologies in the past. They have taken meager steps after each catastrophe where their platform played a part. But this has to end now.”The social network has been less aggressive than competitors Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc. in responding to what employees and advertisers say are harmful posts from U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as incendiary content that goes viral. Facebook, of these companies, is also the most susceptible to regulatory risk, and is already facing antitrust investigations from the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.“You can continuously see the challenge of them trying to have these kinds of broad principles around free expression and stopping harm, and then that mixing with the realpolitik of trying to keep the executive branch happy, which happens to have a half dozen investigations open of Silicon Valley companies for a variety of reasons,” Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security executive, said this week at the virtual Collision Conference.The regulatory threats have historically seemed to loom larger for Facebook than advertiser concerns. The company accounts for about 23% of the entire U.S. digital advertising market, according to EMarketer. And it dominates social media with more than 3 billion users of all its properties.For years, Facebook has weathered scandals with its business intact and growing rapidly. The company’s advertising revenue gained 27% in 2019 to more than $69.7 billion despite threats of regulation, previous calls for advertising boycotts and a user movement encouraging people around the world to delete their accounts. But just four months before the U.S. election, and amid nationwide protests about race and policing in society, Facebook finds itself at the cultural center of a divided country, balancing regulatory pressures with societal ones.Facebook already warned that advertisers are spending less as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, businesses are under pressure to cut costs and respond to the public’s concerns about racial injustice in society. When the civil rights groups organized the ad boycott to push Facebook to better combat hate speech, companies saw a way to make a political statement at an economically convenient time.“It is clear that Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, are no longer simply negligent, but in fact, complacent in the spread of misinformation, despite the irreversible damage to our democracy,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP said in a statement last week.Facebook has tried to quell the boycott behind the scenes, and has reached out to advertisers to push back on the narrative that it doesn’t care about fighting hate and misinformation. In an email to advertising partners, the company highlighted the software it uses to detect hate speech, which has improved over the years, and its efforts to circulate verified information around the elections with a new informational hub and a goal to register 4 million new voters.During the Q&A with employees, Zuckerberg went a step further. He said the company will put a link to the voting hub on all posts related to voting, and will also start marking posts that violate Facebook’s rules, although the posts will remain up if they’re newsworthy.Those rules give Facebook cover to take an action without making a decision on the nature of the content. For instance, several weeks ago when Trump tweeted that mail-in voting would lead to fraud, Twitter labeled the post to fact-check it. Zuckerberg left the same post alone on Facebook. But now, if all voting-related posts have a context link on them, the CEO won’t have to make controversial decisions about their accuracy.Facebook, which already prohibits advertising that discriminates, also sharpened those policies Friday with a clause saying no ads will be allowed if they label another demographic as dangerous, or if they portray immigrants, migrant groups or refugees as inferior and worthy of disgust. “There are no exceptions for politicians in any of the policies I’m announcing here today,” Zuckerberg said.In a follow-up email to advertisers late Friday, Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing solutions, summarized the announcements Zuckerberg made and outlined many of the steps the company already takes to find and remove hate speech. Everson added that Facebook will seek an audit for its quarterly report outlining how it enforces its community standards.“Hate is an insidious feature of every society, and that is reflected across all platforms,” she wrote. “But we also believe in our responsibility to help change the trajectory of hate speech -- and while we know we can’t eradicate it, we will continue to do everything in our power to shatter its presence on our platform.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  Investors on Facebook ad defections: There’s ‘no other place to go'

  Yahoo Finance
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  Florida-based supermarket company joins Facebook and Instagram ad pullout

  Miami Herald

Facebook, Twitter Tumble on Unilever’s Social-Media Pullback

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. shares tumbled Friday after Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, said it will halt all U.S. advertising on both platforms, fueling concerns that other major consumer brands may follow suit.Unilever, which owns names like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Axe shower gel and has an annual advertising budget of almost $8 billion, said it won’t advertise on Facebook, Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram for the rest of the year because of the hate speech and polarized politics that users often post.“Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society,” Unilever said in an emailed statement. “We will be monitoring ongoing and will revisit our current position if necessary.”Facebook shares extended a decline after the news. The stock had dropped 4.6% earlier Friday, then fell 8.3% to $216.08 at the close. Twitter shares dropped 7.4% to $29.05.Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg responded Friday to the growing criticism about misinformation on the site, announcing the company would label all voting-related posts with a link encouraging users to look at its new voter information hub, and expanded its definition of prohibited hate speech for in advertising.Unilever’s decision follows similar moves by a growing list of high-profile consumer companies, including outdoor gear company Patagonia and Verizon Communications Inc., which claim that technology platforms -- particularly Facebook -- profit off user posts that promote hate and spread misinformation.A consortium of civil rights and other advocacy groups, including Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League, have called on advertisers to stop spending on Facebook-owned platforms for the month of July to protest the company’s policies. Honda Motor Co.’s U.S. unit said Friday that it would join the boycott and halt advertising on Facebook and Instagram in July. Unilever’s commitment extends that pledge through 2020, and adds rival social network Twitter to the mix, which has also struggled to deal with offensive posts but has recently taken a more active stance than Facebook in some cases related to U.S. President Donald Trump.More brands joined the fray as the day wore on. Coca-Cola Co. said it will pause paid advertising on all social media for at least 30 days. Hershey Co. intends to halt Facebook spending in July, according to Business Insider.So far, the boycott organizers say that more than 100 companies are participating.“We invest billions of dollars each year to keep our community safe and continuously work with outside experts to review and update our policies,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that the company has banned 250 White supremacist organizations from its platforms. “We know we have more work to do, and we’ll continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight.”Facebook has had a rocky relationship with civil rights groups for years, which have fought to diversify Facebook’s board of directors, accused the company of enabling voter suppression tactics, and took issue with Facebook’s decision to name the Daily Caller, a right-wing news outlet with ties to white nationalism, as one of its formal fact-checking partners in 2019.Frustrations were renewed after Zuckerberg said that a series of posts from Trump about race-related protests were not a violation of the company’s rules. In one last month, Trump said that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a post that was flagged on Twitter as a violation but not on Facebook. A number of unhappy Facebook employees staged a walkout to protest the decision.As the boycott has grown over the past week, Facebook has been reaching out to advertisers to share details about the company’s existing policies, and its efforts to automate the flagging and removal of hate speech on its service. It’s also been highlighting its work to increase voter registration, and on Friday Zuckerberg said the company would now prohibit ads that target certain races or ethnic groups as dangerous. In an email to marketers this week, the company said that it bases its policies on principles, not business interests.Twitter, which has not been the target of the formal ad boycott but has faced similar criticisms as Facebook over the years, says that Unilever reached out to alert the company of its decision before making the announcement publicly.“Our mission is to serve the public conversation and ensure Twitter is a place where people can make human connections, seek and receive authentic and credible information, and express themselves freely and safely,” said Sarah Personette, Twitter’s vice president of global client solutions, in a statement. “We are respectful of our partners’ decisions and will continue to work and communicate closely with them during this time.”(Updates with Coca-Cola and Hershey in eighth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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  White Castle pauses ads on Facebook, Instagram

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  Facebook Ad Boycott: All the Footwear + Fashion Brands That Have Joined

  Footwear News

Hershey (HSY) Down 4.9% Since Last Earnings Report: Can It Rebound?

Hershey (HSY) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

Beyond Meat suspends 2020 forecast on COVID-19 concerns; posts sales beat

Beyond Meat Inc posted better-than-expected quarterly sales on Tuesday, but suspended its 2020 forecast as the COVID-19 pandemic hit demand for the company's plant-based meat products at restaurants. Closure of dine-in areas and restrictions on movement put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus have severely dented sales at restaurants, including Beyond Meat's restaurant partners McDonald's Inc, Dunkin Brands Group Inc and Starbucks Corp and have forced them to rethink how to service customers through limited operations. Beyond Meat Chief Executive Officer Ethan Brown told Reuters on Tuesday that food service sales in March were about 23% lower than what the company had expected, while sales at retail outlets were up 12%.

Is Hershey Stock a Buy?

Scientists tell us that chocolate consumption encourages our brains to release feel-good endorphins, like when you're falling in love. Since The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) makes several chocolate products that are delicious, and it recently released its first-quarter earnings report, it seems like the right time to evaluate the stock to see if the chocolate will keep coming. Hershey's management said that pre-pandemic, expectations were fully on track for both the first quarter and full year.

Oreo maker Mondelez pulls 2020 forecast on coronavirus-led uncertainty

April 28 (Reuters) - Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International Inc withdrew its 2020 outlook on Tuesday, citing the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hershey pulls 2020 forecast, warns of weak sales as consumers curb spending

"A significant number of American households are not working and experiencing meaningful financial pressures," Chief Executive Officer Michele Buck said on a post-earnings call. The kisses chocolate maker also said social distancing practices have also hit gum and mint sales that are usually sold at the checkout counters, while demand for baking products soared. Hershey's net sales rose 1% to $2.04 billion (1.65 billion pounds) in the first quarter ended March 29, but fell short of the average analyst estimate of $2.08 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv data.

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