The overzealous social media team at Vodafone bent to non-existent pressure from bad-faith lefties and jumped onto the GB News outrage train. They tweeted that “advertising [with GB News] has been placed without our permission” and that they’ll be “addressing this”. If you’re thinking that it would be insane to revise ad strategies because one woke account with 356 followers threatened to change phone providers, then you would be right… 

Hi Steve, We proactively manage the placement of our advertising in appropriate & safe environments. For new publications, we wait a few months before deciding to advertise with them. In this instance our advertising has been placed without our permission. We're addressing this.

— Vodafone UK (@VodafoneUK) June 16, 2021

Sources at Vodafone have confirmed to Guido they have no intention of boycotting GB News and that a social media person is making decisions way above their station. This isn’t the first time a social media team has gone rogue… 

Last year Co-op made an embarrassing gaffe, after a social media intern tweeted that the Co-op would no longer be advertising with The Spectator, prompting a huge backlash from media veteran Andrew Neil. It seems like Co-op have learnt from their mistakes tweeting today that they will not “affect the editorial independence of publications or channels”.

Today, Guido also learnt that Octopus Energy are not in fact boycotting GB News, despite claims to the contrary. An email exchange with the company confirmed that Octopus Energy are not “pulling sponsorship” – they are instead waiting to see the success of the programme before buying more advertisements. Seems fair… 

Currently all of the advertising on GB News is programmatically automated – in so much as advertisers go to media buyers and specify a quantity and type of audience at a given price – rather than channel specific. GB News’s advertising sales have been outsourced to Sky Media, the adverts are placed across the130 channels Sky carries during breaks. So when they say adverts were not specifically authorised to appear on a channel, it is true.

Guido suspects advertisers are going to try to avoid provoking viewers or bad faith left-wing campaigners. Savvy advertisers will buy the audience on merit, not on the politics.