After advertisers pulled out of X, formerly Twitter, over concerns about anti-Semitic content on the site, X has lost another high-profile campaign as Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media also pulls out of its partnership with the platform. The campaign was a big win for X as it would see Hilton promote key X features such as live video, live e-commerce, X Spaces (live audio) and more over a two-year period.
Hilton even offered a bright pink custom icon for X’s Premium subscribers.
Terms of the deal were confidential, but included a revenue-sharing element — though not on Premium upgrades to get access to the new icon, we understand.
CNN was the first to report the collapse of the deal, citing concerns about anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi content on the site as factors in the media’s 11:11 decision.
“11:11 Media has made the decision to immediately pull the campaign from the platform,” Bruce Gersh, president and CEO of 11:11 Media, told the agency.
Hilton’s media company is the latest in a long line of brands to freeze or halt spending on X as a result of brand safety concerns, joining other big names like Apple, Disney, Comcast, IBM, Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate and the rest. Brands are concerned about the reputational damage that could be caused if their ads appeared next to hate speech and anti-Semitic content. Despite X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s assurances that X has brand safety controls in place, a report from Media Matters showed how X was running ads alongside hateful content. X, however, claimed that Media Matters manipulated its service, causing the ads to appear, rather than finding the ads in the wild. He then immediately sued for libel.
But even X’s own complaint doesn’t dispute that the ads were real and ran alongside hate speech, it just didn’t like that Media Matters found a scenario where ads could circumvent X’s brand protection in such a way .
Given these concerns, as well as Musk’s own endorsement of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the platform, many advertisers are reconsidering their X spending, potentially causing a significant impact on X’s revenue. Prior to this pullback from advertisers, its ad business X was on track for a 54.4% year-over-year decline in global ad spending from 2022 to 2023. Musk had also said publicly that X’s US ad revenue was down 60%, after pressure from Anti-Defamation Association, which accused the owner of anti-Semitism. (Musk, in turn, threatened to sue the ADL as well.)
