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Think of the digital advertising landscape like an NYC dive bar’s only three outdoor tables. Facebook, Google, and Amazon had them reserved through the summer to drink Aperol Spritzes with the city’s biggest advertisers. But Facebook took a walk to clear its head when the boycotts went into effect, leaving one seat empty.
Tertiary digital ad players like Reddit and Pinterest could swoop in for a few drinks. One made a splashy move, while the other has always been a brand safety leader.
Reddit cleans up good
Reddit shut down around 2,000 of its most controversial subreddits yesterday, including the 790,000-member r/The_Donald, the forum for people who want Trump in their quarantine bubble.
The reason? Violating new community guidelines, such as upvoting more rule-breaking content than average.
The bans are just the latest in Reddit's broader quest to improve its image in order to court wary advertisers and grow its (comparatively) tiny ad biz:
- Since being dubbed the "Wild West" of the internet, Reddit disabled comments on ads and collaborated with Oracle Data Cloud to provide brands with real-time brand safety controls.
- Last year, Reddit crossed the $100 million mark and was expected to more than double its ad revenue by 2021, according to eMarketer estimates from March 2019.
More than just r/BreadStapledToTrees: Some advertisers already love Reddit for its access to niche markets, but it’s still looking for more. With its banning spree, Reddit is playing defense and offense at the same time—it's trying to get ahead of collateral damage from boycotts in a way that could make it look more hospitable to the marketers it wants to attract.
Pinterest is just vibing
While Reddit works to make itself zeitgeist-appropriate, Pinterest has been there for years.
- Old news: In 2019, Pinterest was second only to LinkedIn in terms of user trust in social platforms, per Business Insider Intelligence. It also has a proactive track record around controversial topics, such as anti-vaxx misinformation.
- Boycotters are already on board: Eddie Bauer and The North Face both publicly stated an interest in reallocating some boycott bucks to Pinterest.
Zoom out: Smaller digital advertising players like Reddit and Pinterest have a momentary opening to compete for displaced digital ad dollars. The pretty hard part will be beating out the many options for those dollars—the really hard part will be keeping them once FB scrutiny subsides.