Just two months after Kelloggs was called out for advertising on horrendously alt-right news site Breitbart, and subsequently labelled “bigots” by Breitbart editor-in-chief for ditching their ad deal, the site has lost 818 advertising deals.
Breitbart, whose ex-editor Steve Bannon is now one of Trump’s right hand men, is responsible for headlines like, “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism Or Cancer?” and “Gay Rights Have Made Us Dumber, It’s Time To Get Back In The Closet”.
Pictured above is Stephen Bannon on the cover of TIME Magazine.
As a result of such offensive content, the advertising dollars have started to dwindle, with an advertising boycott kicking off amongst brands and the wider public.
According to a database from grassroots campaign group Sleeping Giants, a total of 818 companies have pledged to blacklist Breitbart from their media plan, and the list is growing.
In the last few months, giant corporations such as Kelloggs, BMW, Visa, T-Mobile, Nordstrom and Lufthansa have all severed ties with the company.
Per The Independent UK, Emma Pullman, lead campaign strategist at separate campaign group SumOfUs, said most of the companies were pre-existing advertisers, while others have put a black dot next to the website for future media plans.
SumOfUs is now looking to target third-party ad agencies, and larger players like Amazon and Google.
“If Google stops engaging with Breitbart that would be a really big step as a lot of advertising wouldn’t appear on the site,” Pullman told The Independent.
A petition for Amazon to cancel its relationship with the news outlet has reached more than 312,000 signatures.
And as Breitbart aims for expansion in places like Germany, France and Italy, people are hindering this process by purchasing French URLS like Breitbart.fr. Meanwhile, German companies like BMW, restaurant chain Vapiano, Deutsche Telekom and Lufthansa have cut ties with Breitbart.
Lufthansa shamed Breitbart for publishing “violent, sexist, extremist and radical political content”.
“The idea behind the campaign is if we can convene enough people we can interrupt its ability to expand,” Pullman added to The Independent.
“The campaign is symbolic. This is a really tangible way people can convince companies to not advertise and it’s also a way to criticise the rise of the far-right and the hatred, xenophobia and racism that is coming out of Breitbart.”
It comes as Trump threatened to pull funding for The University of California, Berkeley after it cancelled a speech by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, however in response to such a move, two Canadian universities made the decision to sign the advertising ban.
