Get marketing news you'll actually want to read
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.
Reddit and Omnicom made it official. Or more official. Reddit is hoping that a deeper relationship with the media conglomerate will warm up brands wary of its freewheeling nature.
r/Brandsafety
Despite its 52 million daily active users (DAUs), Reddit’s long had to do the safety dance to try and convince brands that it's a suitable place to spend. Recent headlines haven’t exactly helped:
- r/The_Donald was an infamously toxic subreddit dedicated to the former president that was banned in June 2020.
- r/donaldtrump was also canned after the January 8 insurrection.
- Activity on r/WallStreetBets resulted in a meme uprising and a congressional hearing.
Reddit’s ad business is finally taking off, but it remains pretty small: In 2020, its US ad revenue rose nearly 20% to $141.8 million, and eMarketer expects it to hit $212+ million this year. For context, Snapchat and Twitter are projected to hit $1.34 billion and $1.87 billion, respectively.
The flipside: There’s a reason Reddit was the perfect platform to (briefly) take over the US economy. It has obsessive, niche communities—and that is both a benefit and a liability. The Omnicom partnership could help convince brands that one outweighs the other.