Some 46 Conservative parliamentarians have called on the Prime Minister to intervene against the ongoing advertiser “boycott” of media outlets. This is a subject dear to Guido’s heart and wallet. There is a concerted campaign by some smart people on the left to defund right-of-centre media. It first of all requires the delegitimisation of right-of-centre publications (and now broadcasters). This is why you hear the like of Owen Jones repeatedly describing the Spectator and Guido as “far right”. They cherry pick a provocative article, or below the line comment, or the late night ramblings of one presenter to paint the overall output as unacceptable and, crucially, dangerous for the brands of advertisers. They also try to frame the content as “disinformation”.
It works; Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic and the Conservative Woman website are defunded of advertising. Google, which dominates automated programmatic advertising, has effectively blacklisted their content – primarily for airing dissident views over Covid measures. Whatever your view of their content, this is unhealthy for democracy. During the pandemic, Guido’s YouTube account was locked by the algorithm when we featured content from Nadhim Zahawi – who was at the time the vaccines minister. Ditto when we featured an interview with Donald Trump by Nigel Farage where Trump disputed the presidential election outcome. Twitter deplatformed the New York Post during that same presidential election for breaking the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. It was alleged – falsely – that it was a Russian intelligence operation. Hunter is now facing related charges evidenced by content found on the laptop. It can’t be good for democracy to have tech platforms censoring content in response to political pressure.
In a bizarre business move, Swedish cider company Kopparberg has suspended all their GB News advertising after a left-wing Twitter user complained they’d hosted Nigel Farage as a guest. Guido has no doubt Kopparberg will also be suspending ads for BBC, ITV and Sky, who have all interviewed Nige’ on numerous occasions…
If boycotts are Kopparberg’s thing, Guido can only oblige and encourage its readers to abandon the Swedish brand. Guido will instead happily recommend several British cider companies that won’t leave customers with such a bad taste in their mouth…
- Thirsty Farmer cider, based in Nottinghamshire and made by the same family since 1880. It’s a small British company, though still stocking Morrisons and the Co-op…
- Dunkertons black fox organic cider, is a delicious cider from the Cotswolds. The perfect drink to enjoy throughout this glorious British summer
- Jack Rite sparkling cider will go down a treat with friends on the July 19th
- Henderson’s Toffee Apple cider is the brew for readers with a sweet tooth
- Brexit Bellevie is a beautiful, refreshing drink that champions the cause close to co-conspirators’ hearts. Readers could crack open a bottle in celebration of today’s trade deal with Australia…
Nivea has also apparently announced a boycott, though Guido’s altogether less familiar with brands of moisturiser. Imperial Leather moisturiser seems an appropriate alternative brand…
Guido has contacted Kopparberg for comment.
The business backed campaign to unlock the economy, Recovery, is not a crazy bunch of covid deniers or anti-vaxxers. Their stated aim is to speed up the opening of the economy now the vaccination campaign has covered the vulnerable and starting to cover low-risk adults. A reasonable position, the sequencing is a matter of debate and as the PM told us dependent, on the data. The poster has been banned.
JC Decaux, the world’s largest poster company, have refused to run it saying “due to the political undertones within the messaging of the artwork we are unable to run this campaign.” JC Decaux has run countless political campaigns over the years, so that’s nonsense. The Government itself has spent £184 million on advertising over the past year, a fair proportion with JC Decaux.
Similarly, a poster site at Salford owned by Trafford Council, banned the poster from being used. Trafford Council said
“… unfortunately we won’t be able to carry the client on the TraffordCity roadside digital. As explained these roadside sites sit on Trafford Council land who have to approve artwork… Having looked at the website, unfortunately this would NOT be allowed as it is political and breaches our advertising policy.”
The campaign offered to change the poster design to no avail.
One-sided bans on political advertising are a dangerous form of censorship, like a lot of what is going on currently it is a slippery slope. Recovery is making a fair-minded political argument about the timing of the wind-down of this lockdown. We don’t suspend democratic argument in pandemic…
The government released new details today of a study on their impending bonkers ad ban, which, despite all previous evidence that such illiberal clampdowns don’t work, they hoped would justify the move. The government’s own research suggests an ad ban will reduce children’s calories consumption by just 2.8 calories per day.
2.8 calories per day per child would – assuming no exercise – add 1 pound per three and a half years – and all for the destruction of thousands of small and medium businesses, and depressing the advertising industry. Not only is a 2.8 calorie reduction pathetic, the ASI’s Matthew Lesh points out even this is likely to be an exaggeration:
“The review that the Government’s calculations are based on – Viner et. al (2019) – does not contain any studies that simulate a realistic environment in which children are exposed to ‘junk food’ advertisements. In all of the 11 studies included, children were allowed to consume an unlimited quantity of food at no cost and none featured parental supervision.”
The government’s figures also calculate the advertising market – for what Whitehall refers to as “high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS)” – is £438 million (59% of the total online food and drink advertising market) with a hit to online platforms of £271 million per year.
With around 11 million children from 5–18, the UK government is set to sacrifice £813 million of online advertising revenue in return for one pound lost per child. Turns out this weight loss malarkey isn’t as easy as just taking candy from a baby…
The Government this week published its consultation on banning online advertising for so-called ‘junk food’. Guido has reported before how there is no legal definition of ‘junk food’, and regulations would end up banning yoghurts, pesto, and raisins. Now the madness is spreading to a much more pervasive sphere than TV or the tube – online. The original plans were to ban the promotion tasty food online before the 9pm watershed, but now this has morphed into a total and complete shutdown. Banning ads for everyone from Wedding Cake businesses to local bakeries…
Disregarding the wider question of is it in the public interest to further undermine the media which is already struggling with reduced advertising revenues, the IEA’s Chris Snowdon details many ridiculosities of the new proposal in a must read blog. One striking example would be the banning of adverts for coronation chicken in time for the Queen’s newly announced four day Platinum Jubilee Holiday (Thursday June 2 to Friday June 5, 2022). Brits would be forbidden from including coronation chicken or commemorative shortbread in ads to celebrate the occasion. That’s just un-British.
Hugo Swire’s wife caused quite a stir with her cracking diary detailing the behind-the-scenes joys of the Cameron chumocracy. A bemused co-conspirator, Tony Colvin, got in touch to query these advertisements running on Guido. For Hugo…
They invite you to find out what Hugo Swire MP is doing for East Devon. Not very much Guido suspects, given he stood down as an MP in 2019. Which meant he fortunately didn’t have to face irritated and embarrassed Tory colleagues. The local Tory MP is now Simon Jupp.
These are Google adverts bought programmatically. Presumably a year after the campaign ended somebody is still automatically paying for them on their card – hopefully not the taxpayer. As much as Guido appreciates the revenue, perhaps somebody, somewhere, ought to cancel the order?
