To be honest, this is standard operating practice for almost every advertising venue.
If you work at Amazon and want to show Amazon ads at the top of the page, whenever a user searches for eBay, Google will happily let Amazon do that. If eBay wants to prevent it, they need to pay money go secure the advertising spot on "eBay" search results. Ditto for Windows/Mac, BMW/Mercedes, etc etc.
At its foundation, advertising spots are content-agnostic. Anyone is able to buy advertising slots on any page, and as long as everyone follows the rules, whoever has the best bid*click-through-rate will win. And to be honest, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable way to run a business that's funded almost entirely by advertising revenues.
Not exactly. Google orders and displays advertisements based on expected value (to Google). Then the winner of the slot pays the lowest market-winning price.
Overly simplistic example: eBay bids $1 max and Amazon bids $2 max. People searching for eBay have a 10% probability of clicking on an eBay ad and a 2% probability of clicking on an Amazon ad.
Expected value to google:
Ebay - $1 * 10% = $0.10 EV max
Amazon - $2 * 2% = $0.04 EV max
Ebay is displayed even with a lower bid because the expected value of the display is higher. The bid is never adjusted -- eBay is specific about its bid or its maximum bid and the market of expected value decides who is shown. Amazon could just as easily bid $5.01 and show up. And when the ad is clicked, if Amazon is the only bidder at $2, then Ebay would pay $.50 for that click because that is the lowest bid that wins the position using the EV.
To apply this to the Snapchat Conversation -- One might expect if Snapchat operated this way, then its probably fair to assume that EveryTown would have had a much higher relevancy score than NRA, so should have been able to win the campaign for much lower $$. But in paid placement like this, everyone is paying for placement not for performance. It is not an EV market. Hence the dilemma.
I work at Google. I pretty sure what I said before is true, bids are adjusted based on quality and relevance to the search query, not just predicted click trough rate.
Also this does not apply to snapchat, because afaik they do brand advertising based on impressions (CPM) and not clicks (CPC).
That's not even remotely true. There are lots of situations and content types that are filtered or blocked by most advertising companies. I couldn't advertise a porn site when people search for "hacker news" on google, for example.
I'm glad you are making an effort to be honest, thank you. However that is really too simplistic.
This is not competing retailers, it's people fighting over matters of life and death and they will use any tactic against each other no matter how distasteful because they believe the end justifies the means.
Clearly any media company has to carefully weigh controversial issues from different perspectives. Making money, preserving the integrity and their brand, potential bad press or defecting customers, etc.
Often there is no simple rule. A judgement call has to be made factoring in what's best for company overall and if we're lucky maybe integrity is mentioned by someone along the way.
> A judgement call has to be made factoring in what's best for company overall and if we're lucky maybe integrity is mentioned by someone along the way.
I'm pro-gun, and have given money to the NRA, and I'd be upset if snapchat wouldn't sell ad-space to the Brady Campaign during an NRA-sponsored event like if the 1000-person shoot had been captured using Snapchat.
I think it's a basic moral standing that whenever someone is saying something I want it allowed for the oposition to say the exact opposite.
I also think that the only people who'd be afraid of a pro-NRA ad in or during an anti-gun ad would be those who cannot defend their moral possition.
Personally, I'm happy when I get the opprotunity to see the anti-gun arguments on HN and that we can discuss ideas about these subjects. It broadens my understanding of what others think and vise versa.
There isn't a problem with saying "I sell X, and all I care about is the money I get from doing that" and then turning around and selling Xs to the highest bidder.
That would be principled but not in Snapchat's interest.
Their audience demographics would probably hate to see an NRA ad in a story about gun control, and it would hurt Snapchat's reputation, brand, and loyalty. You might even see hashtags trending about it, calling them "insensitive" and worse.
Those people aren't the people the NRA is trying to reach. They're on the wrong side of the issue as far as the NRA cares. The people who don't feel strongly about the issue are the ones the NRA wants to reach. They have a few seconds to snap them back into reality after consuming a bunch of sob stories about violent crime.
> That would be principled but not in Snapchat's interest.
It would definetly be in Snapchat's interests. The best thing for an arms dealer is a war, the best thing for a place of discussion is a clash of ideology.
They'd just sell the space to both sides, run the ads, say "We are a neutral party who doesn't get involved in politics; if we give one side a stand we're fine with giving the other side a stand. Complain to the NRA if you think it's poor taste, we just sell bilboard space"
> Their audience demographics would probably hate to see an NRA ad in a story about gun control, and it would hurt Snapchat's reputation, brand, and loyalty
Sadly, a lot of pro 2a people use Snapchat despite my, and many others, protestings.
Also, we need to ask a few questions about this "brand loyalty" and "repuation". What "reputation" does Snapchat have? What "brand" does Snapchat have? Their a service to send small clips of your life to other people. Wheather that's to send videos of you speeding at >100MPH, of crying people talking about how guns killed their relatives, or the NRA saying that it wasn't the guns but instead was a criminal who killed their relative.
That perception of their essential function is not damaged and in fact, if anything, a lot of pro-gun people would just be happy that their willing to be unbias in their ad-space.
> You might even see hashtags trending about it, calling them "insensitive" and worse.
I'd surely hope the anti-gun crowd can come up with a worse insult then "insensitive". Even still, I've never seen something come of the hash-tag-nag that happens after every major screw-up of a company. The demographics we're talking about come from a time when voting with your wallet isn't even a faint idea in the back of their head.
If Snapchat came out pro-Hitler, financially supporting neo-Nazis, I'd bet good money that after the initial hash-tag-nag craze the same crowd would still use the app.
The fact is that Snapchat has poised itself as a key piece of the communication networks that the younger generations are forming. It would need a suitible replacement for them to think about leaving it.
That's why it's an advertisers gold mine. All you have to do is keep the market clean and you'll be able to reach this century's bread-and-butter demographic.
> Out of pure curiosity, would you be willing to explain why you'd protest 2A people using a service that you also use?
I have snapchat installed on my phone. I do not use it. I do not like the company. I'm not in their demographic. I don't like taking pictures of myself nor of my suroundings.
I'm about as much of a use as I am Verizon Messanger+ user. It's there on my phone, I'll never use it, and I don't like it.
The extent of my usage of the app pretty much goes to telling people who message me on it to text me instead.
Except that Snapchat had already engaged the client and was working with them in an editorial sense. It's not a 'first-come first-served' free market buffet at that point.
Do you think it would be acceptable for the webmaster of Mercedes to put BMW ads on their site, because BMW was willing to pay them to do so?
If you work at Amazon and want to show Amazon ads at the top of the page, whenever a user searches for eBay, Google will happily let Amazon do that. If eBay wants to prevent it, they need to pay money go secure the advertising spot on "eBay" search results. Ditto for Windows/Mac, BMW/Mercedes, etc etc.
At its foundation, advertising spots are content-agnostic. Anyone is able to buy advertising slots on any page, and as long as everyone follows the rules, whoever has the best bid*click-through-rate will win. And to be honest, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable way to run a business that's funded almost entirely by advertising revenues.