>can advertisers stop being afraid of anything and everything?
This is what I don't understand. If my memory serves, the whole demonetization debacle started when some activists at a newspaper wrote an article about big brands having ads on Alex Jones' content, in which they reached out to the brands and asked "are you happy with your content being seen next to XYZ?"[1][2] It struck me as just another article in a long list (that continues to today) where a legacy media giant lashes out at new media because they're worried about ad revenue being taken from them, the 'rightful' recipients.
If people are watching a video, regardless of the content, they are almost certainly there because they enjoy that content. Isn't this the point of all advertising; you want your brand on display when someone is enjoying something to (sub-consciously?) associate your brand with the enjoyment the viewer is experiencing? I wonder if there is a case to be made for loss of earnings for shareholders if the pool of eyeballs seeing their brands messaging is continually diluted.
I suppose the counter-argument is that the brands don't want their advertising funds to go to an organization they have moral disagreements with, but that certainly hasn't stopped them in the past. Is the income from a washing machine sale any less valuable if it comes from someone not politically aligned with you, or if they saw it while browsing a porn site? (I'm not interested in discussing Alex Jones). It seems to boil down to not wanting to be 'cancelled' and have the twitter-mob making waves and threatening boycotts.
This is what I don't understand. If my memory serves, the whole demonetization debacle started when some activists at a newspaper wrote an article about big brands having ads on Alex Jones' content, in which they reached out to the brands and asked "are you happy with your content being seen next to XYZ?"[1][2] It struck me as just another article in a long list (that continues to today) where a legacy media giant lashes out at new media because they're worried about ad revenue being taken from them, the 'rightful' recipients.
If people are watching a video, regardless of the content, they are almost certainly there because they enjoy that content. Isn't this the point of all advertising; you want your brand on display when someone is enjoying something to (sub-consciously?) associate your brand with the enjoyment the viewer is experiencing? I wonder if there is a case to be made for loss of earnings for shareholders if the pool of eyeballs seeing their brands messaging is continually diluted.
I suppose the counter-argument is that the brands don't want their advertising funds to go to an organization they have moral disagreements with, but that certainly hasn't stopped them in the past. Is the income from a washing machine sale any less valuable if it comes from someone not politically aligned with you, or if they saw it while browsing a porn site? (I'm not interested in discussing Alex Jones). It seems to boil down to not wanting to be 'cancelled' and have the twitter-mob making waves and threatening boycotts.
[1] Mashable article about the advertising pull out - https://archive.is/6LkmL
[2] The hit piece from CNN - http://archive.is/4yHMF