Omnicom Advertising and Marketing has asked its clients to temporarily stop spending on ads on Twitter, according to an internal memo.
Omnicom represents more than 5,000 customers in 70 countries, such as McDonald’s, Apple and Johnson & Johnson. The memo didn’t mention the customers by name, and it wasn’t clear if any of them had stopped spending on Twitter advertising.
The move underscores growing skepticism from agencies and brands about Twitter’s future since its takeover by Elon Musk, who blamed civil rights groups for the slump in revenue after lobbying Twitter advertisers to boycott the service until Musk demonstrates how he will control disinformation and hate speech.
“Twitter’s ability to maintain the previous level of safety and brand effectiveness measures appears to be ineffective in the short term,” the memo said, adding that “the risk of being associated with unsafe content may increase and such an issue should be addressed into consideration when deciding to use the platform.”
