Twitter advertising pause or persist? Pharmas quietly weigh options in uncertain time

As Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter — and almost-daily controversies — causes confusion and consternation, brand advertisers on the platform are trying to figure out what to do. And that includes pharma advertisers.

So far, the lone publicly on-the-record pharma pausing its advertising on the platform is Gilead Sciences and its subsidiary Kite.

Gilead initially said last week that it was temporarily pausing Twitter advertising. However, it amended its stance on Monday to remove the word “temporarily.”

“We are monitoring the situation, including our advertising spend. For now, we are in the process of pausing advertising on Twitter,” a spokesperson said in an updated email to Endpoints News.

Yet Gilead may not be alone. Pfizer is said to have suspended its Twitter ads temporarily, according to multiple media outlets. While the Big Pharma has not confirmed or denied any of those reports, it’s on media tracking lists of major advertisers that have reportedly put Twitter buys on hold, including Audi, Apple, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Mondelez and General Motors.

Some media reports also suggest that pharma and healthcare companies may be “quiet quitting” Twitter advertising. One of the leading advertising agency holding companies Interpublic Group has reportedly advised all its IPG Mediabrands clients to pause advertising on Twitter. IPG Mediabrand’s media buying and planning network includes the pharma and healthcare agency HealixGlobal. Another ad agency holding company Havas Group is also said to be advising its client to pause ads.

Among more than a dozen Big Pharma companies contacted for comment by Endpoints, only a handful responded. Of those, most simply said they have no comment. Only Gilead and Sanofi were willing to go on the record with an official response.

While Gilead is pausing ads indefinitely, Sanofi said it’s taking a wait-and-see approach for now.

“We are watching this carefully. Sanofi’s priority is to ensure that patients and consumers are aware of the medicines, vaccines and consumer health products that can improve their lives,” its statement said.

PhRMA, the industry’s leading trade group, isn’t advising members one way or the other, and a spokesperson said in an email that the organization doesn’t have any insights on which way pharma members may be leaning.

As for PhRMA’s own advertising on Twitter, the spokesperson added: “We always closely monitor changes that may impact our advocacy across a number of social media platforms, and we will continue to do so.”

The great Twitter ad pause 

Why are brands pausing, or considering pausing, advertising on Twitter anyway? It’s mostly about the controversy. Brands and advertisers buy ads on social media to reach customer audiences directly. In pharma’s case, that mostly means patients and healthcare professionals, with a secondary audience of investors, payers and other tiered stakeholders. The one thing brands don’t want is for their ads to be near controversial, offensive or explicit content.

By comparison, in July 2020, most major pharma companies, including Pfizer, Novartis, J&J and Bristol Myers Squibb, paused advertising on Facebook at the prompting of the Anti-Defamation League’s Stop Hate for Profit movement.

ADL and its Stop Hate for Profit Coalition met with Musk last week, and while it initially put out a statement calling the meeting “productive,” by Friday, it changed tacks following a proliferation of “hate and disinformation.”

ADL’s latest statement says: “At this point in time, we are calling on advertisers to pause their spend globally until it becomes clear whether Twitter remains committed to being a safe place for advertisers as well as society overall.”

Safety is indeed the biggest concern on Twitter with new owner Musk’s takeover and promise to open the platform. The problem? His version of open may be too open for brands.

Independent monitoring group Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) is tracking spikes in derogatory slurs on Twitter since Musk took over on Oct. 28. On that day alone, the use of the n-word increased almost 500% from the previous average, NCRI reported in a Twitter post.

Those kinds of data points are worrisome for brands, marketing experts say.

Musk’s own words in his Twitter posts don’t offer much consolation either. Instead of mollifying concerned brands, he wrote on Friday, in response to a user asking for the names of brands dropping out, that “A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues.”

Mona Shatell

Mona Shatell is a professor of nursing and popular social media influencer who is taking a personal wait-and-see approach on her Twitter account but said in an email to Endpoints that she understands pharma’s concerns.

“I don’t think that pharma and healthcare brands will want to be associated with widespread misinformation, racism, and violence, which is the fear with a Musk-owned Twitter,” she said. “That said, we don’t know that this will happen, or get worse or get more widespread. I think pharma and healthcare brands who decide to pause or take a break from advertising “while the dust settles” (if it will) is not a bad idea.”

What happens next?

In the end, even if one believes the doomsayers who predict a Twitter controversial free-for-all will end in disaster, it may not be devastating for pharma advertisers. Among social media channels, it’s one of the least often used by pharma for advertising. Twitter’s too-short character counts don’t allow for required regulatory risk details for product ads.

Instead, pharma typically uses Twitter mostly to post company news or re-direct people to longer advertisements and online content online where they can tell a story — and better comply with FDA regulations.

Pharma companies also tend to shy away from Twitter because its “mean” reputation often backfires on posts where responders end up airing laundry lists of complaints and criticisms.

In fact, the recent news about Pfizer and other reported pharmas pausing Twitter advertising has led to negative commentary from anti-vax and other account holders chiming in that they’re glad to see pharma advertising go away.

Meanwhile, big advertisers are said to be in talks with Musk and others at Twitter to try to negotiate safe parameters for their brands.

However, as Shatell said, “Perhaps companies hope to influence Musk, encouraging him to take a more balanced and neutral approach (but this is probably unlikely to happen).”

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