According to the latest Kantar study, Platform X (formerly Twitter) will face the “biggest decline recorded by a major global advertising platform.”
“Go fuck yourselves.” At the end of 2023, Elon Musk addressed in rather crude terms the major advertisers who had decided to leave Twitter (X), since he took over the social network. A speech that is not optimal for gaining their trust, as noted by Kantar, a market research giant, in his report Media Reactions 2024.
The company surveyed “18,000 consumers in 27 markets and 1,000 senior marketing executives worldwide” to take the pulse of global advertising trends. In a press release on September 5, Kantar announced that 26% of marketers plan to reduce their advertising spend on Twitter (X) by 2025. This makes it nothing less than “the largest decline recorded by a major global advertising platform,” Kantar said.
“Unpredictable” platform
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter (X) in 2022, the platform has abandoned its moderation ambitions, giving free rein to hateful, disinformation, or conspiracy accounts, regularly relayed by Elon Musk himself. The latest development: Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump, raising fears of a politicization that advertisers would not appreciate.
The key is a collapse in the confidence of marketers in advertising on Twitter according to Kantar, which mentions a confidence rate of 22% among the 1000 specialists surveyed in 2022, compared to only 12% in 2024. The proportion of professionals believing that advertising on Twitter “ensures brand safety” is thus 4%. A figure much lower than those concerning other digital giants (39% for Google, for example).
“X has evolved enormously in recent years and the platform is unpredictable. It’s hard to feel confident about your brand safety in such an environment,” says Gonca Bubani, Director of Opinion Leader Analysis at Kantar.
In a graph released by the company, YouTube, Instagram and Netflix – a new player in online advertising with its low-cost subscription – are perceived as the platforms that inspire the most trust among marketers, while TikTok is seen as the most innovative platform in the field. Twitter (X) remains far behind in both areas.
