Reducing its advertising on X, the social media network that was formerly known as Twitter, is something Walmart announced on Friday, citing the fact that “we’ve found some other platforms better for reaching our customers.”
A person familiar with the issue said Walmart’s decision has been in the works for some time. However, it coincides with X experiencing a loss of advertisers due to billionaire owner Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic remark on the social media network.
Marketing Dive estimates that the business spends over $2.7 billion on advertising annually. Walmart is still heavily present on X, according to Joe Benarroch, the chief of operations at X, in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. The company ceased running advertisements on X in October, he continued, “so this is not a recent pausing.”
“Walmart has a wonderful community of more than a million people on X, and with a half a billion people on X, every year the platform experiences 15 billion impressions about the holidays alone with more than 50% of X users doing most or all of their shopping online,” Benarroch stated.
At this week’s New York Times Deal book Summit, Musk adopted a belligerent position, cursing out marketers who had distanced themselves from X and urged them to “go f— yourself.” In addition, he expressed dissatisfaction about firms attempting to “blackmail me with advertising” by discontinuing their usage of the platform and issued a warning that the departure of major sponsors may “kill” X.
