America News Agency

A global survey by market research firm Kantar found that 26 percent of marketers plan to reduce their spending on X by 2025.

That’s the biggest pullback on record for any major global ad platform.

Kantar said in a report released Thursday that just 4 percent of marketers believe X ads provide “brand safety,” meaning certainty that their ads won’t appear next to extreme content, compared with 39 percent for Google ads.

“Advertisers have been shifting their marketing spend away from X for several years,” Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media, said in a statement, adding that “a turnaround is unlikely at the moment.”

“X has changed so much in recent years, and it can be so unpredictable from one day to the next, it’s hard to feel confident about the safety of your brand in that environment,” Bubani said.

On the other hand, consumers are more positive about ads on X because there are fewer ads than there used to be, according to Kantar.

The findings suggest that Musk’s June appeal at Cannes Lions, the world’s largest annual advertising festival, was not successful. After swearing at advertisers last year in an interview with Mark Read, the CEO of marketing giant WPP, the billionaire struck a more conciliatory tone.

But his efforts to woo advertisers appear short-lived. Musk filed a lawsuit last month against influential ad industry bodies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS, alleging that the groups conspired to “boycott” X.

In a statement on Thursday, an X spokesperson said the platform “now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, and is seeing the highest levels of usage.”

The spokesperson added that X’s “brand safety rating averages 99 percent, as verified by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science.” Those companies analyze the value of digital ad placements.

Since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition in 2022, major brands have withdrawn from the platform formerly known as Twitter amid concerns about content moderation and uncertainty about its direction.

Musk’s comments about X have also spooked advertisers. Last November, nearly a dozen major brands, including IBM, Disney, and Paramount, halted ad spending on X over concerns about anti-Semitism and hate speech. That was compounded by the fact that Musk himself had promoted an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, for which he later apologized.

Based on interviews with 1,000 senior marketers and 18,000 consumers in more than 24 countries, the Kantar report also found that X scored outside the top 10 brands in terms of trust and perceptions of how innovative advertising on the platform is.

The report found that YouTube remains the top advertising platform for marketers, while Amazon and TikTok are tied for the top spot for consumers.

Separately, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said earlier this week that the world doesn’t have to put up with Musk’s “far-right all-clear” agenda because of his vast wealth.

Brazil blocked X over the weekend on an order from the Supreme Court after Musk refused to appoint a new legal representative in the country. The move escalated a months-long battle over what constitutes free speech as Brazil cracks down on the spread of misinformation online.