Coca-Cola stops social media paid ads for 30 days

The Coca-Cola Company will stop running paid ads on all social media platforms for the next 30 days to reassess their advertising policies and determine whether revisions are needed.

Coca-Cola’s decision comes amid an industry wide call for brands to reevaluate where they spend their ad dollars.

It’s noteworthy that some other companies announced they would stop advertising on Facebook because of the platform’s policies on rooting out misinformation and hateful content.

Calls to boycott paid advertisements on social media started online in mid-June, calling brands to realign their spending and stop Facebook ads, before some groups like Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, Common Sense Media, Free Press, NAACP, and Sleeping Giants, later signed up on another boycott campaign titled “Stop Hate for Profit.”

Coca-Cola’s decision to pause its social media advertising is not part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, according to a press statement for Coca-Cola.

It’s not also clear whether its decision includes organic posts on those websites or if it would still use the platforms’ insights from previous campaigns or ad tech. The company also didn’t name any social media platforms by name in its statement.

The “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign began to gain momentum after The North Face pulled out of advertising on Facebook last week and companies including Patagonia, Verizon and Ben & Jerry’s followed suit.

Other companies, such as Unilever, took it a step further and said they would cease advertising on Facebook and Twitter through the rest of this year.