October 31, 2019
You’ve probably heard the news: effective November 22, Twitter will no longer allow political and issue advertising.
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) October 30, 2019
While the motion is causing a stir in an already contentious advertising climate, it’s not nearly the death knell for issue advertising that @jack may be signaling.
Here are three things to consider in the wake of Twitter’s announcement:
The lack of Twitter issue ads eliminates an often used source of online inventory to reach influencers. Those thought leaders are still online, but we now have fewer opportunities to reach them.
As a result, it is only going to be harder to break through with opinion elites.
The need for eye-catching, thumb-stopping graphics, GIFs and video content is going to be more pronounced than ever as advertisers vy for viewers’ attention. The creative must be clever and concise, while embracing the unique nature of the platform it’s on.
To that end, groups who embrace new and innovative ad placements will also succeed. Units like YouTube’s CPM Masthead and Facebook’s 15- and 6-second in-stream videos have burst onto the scene as high-quality ad units that, when paired with high impact creative, will cut through.
Finally, it does us good to remember:
Twitter is taking a month to sort out the aftermath of this announcement before political and issue ads disappear. This means that what constitutes an “issue-based” ad versus a “political” ad is going to take a while to parse out, and the situation will remain fluid while everyone picks up the pieces of their digital advertising strategies.
While this announcement may feel like a bomb in the middle of your advertising plan for next year, keep these three points in mind – and contact us if you’re interested in strategies that will help you come out on top.
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