In The News: Facebook Boycotts, Walmart Movie Theatres, BMW’s Microtransactions
The last couple of weeks have proven that consumers around the world prioritize corporate social responsibility and social justice above many things when assessing a business. If companies fail to satisfy the public’s demands, their baseline operations could be at risk. For instance, Facebook has failed to properly address all of the hate comments and misinformation on its platform, causing over 600 companies to pull their ads from the platform. On the other hand, some companies like Walmart and BMW are trying to future-proof their operations and protect them from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Over 600 Companies Are Boycotting Facebook, Costing Them Fortunes
One movement that has been slowly growing for the past couple of weeks is the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, and Facebook can’t exactly ignore it anymore. The platform has long been criticized for spreading fake information and hate speech while doing little to stop it. Making over $70 billion in revenue last year from its ads, when your biggest customers threaten to stop advertising on your platform, you may have a problem on your hands.
“Let’s send Facebook a powerful message: Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism and violence” states the website for the Stop Hate for Profit campaign.
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign outlines 10 steps it wants Facebook to take to better address hate speech on its platform.
Some of the recommendations include:
- Hiring a C-suite-level executive with a civil rights background who will review the company’s products and rules for discrimination, bias and hate.
- Finding and removing Facebook groups about white supremacy, militias, anti-Semitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denial, vaccine misinformation and climate change denial.
- Stop exempting politicians from fact-checking, removing misinformation about voting and prohibiting calls to violence from politicians. (Facebook says that it will remove content that suppresses voting and incites violence including from politicians, but critics have disagreed with how the company interprets its rules.)
By Thursday morning, more than 660 businesses and organizations had announced they are pausing advertising on Facebook, according to advocacy group Sleeping Giants, one of the campaign’s organizers. Some notable companies on that list are Adidas, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Clorox, Volkswagen, and Starbucks. Facebook has removed nearly 10 million posts for violating its rules against hate speech, but as the list of companies continues to increase, the company will have to take more drastic measures to effectively get rid of hate speech and misinformation on its platform
Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-ad-boycott-how-big-businesses-hit-pause-on-hate/
Walmart To Transform Its Parking Lots into Drive-In Theatres
The company announced that over 160 Walmart parking lots will be transformed into drive-ins for the summer to support the movie industry amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The drive-In will feature movies programmed by the Tribeca Film Festival, which has focused on launching summer movie drive-in series bringing films, music, and sporting events to as many US drive-ins as possible.
This collaboration is just one of the many inter-industry efforts multiple companies are making to keep afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. Walmart is yet to disclose any admission prices, if any, but the company announced that people will be able to buy concessions and other products online and pick them up at the location ahead of the film screening.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/2/21311229/walmart-parking-lot-drive-in-movie-theaters
BMW Goes All-In on Microtransactions
The car company has announced many of the new digital systems that will power its new luxury vehicles. From new navigation systems to a revamped digital assistant and digital keys, BMW is positioning itself as one of the pioneers in the fully digitalized car segments. However, the company also shared that it is going all-in on in-car microtransactions.
Cars are more full of computers and software than ever before, which has presented car makers with the opportunity to offer brand-new features and new ways of making money. Tesla is a great example of this, which currently sells access to a variety of car features after purchase.
BMW wants to take this to a whole new level. The company announced on Wednesday that all cars equipped with their “Operating System 7” will soon receive an update that makes it possible for the company to add all sort of functions to the car like access to heated seats and driving assist features like automatic high beams or adaptive cruise control.
How the company plans to monetize these additions is still unknown, however, rumours of a subscription-based revenue model are prevalent online. The long-term vision of these microtransactions is that users will be able to buy features that they did not eventually buy with the car. How all this plays out will depend a lot on what BMW charges for access to these various features, but this development opens the doors to hundreds of new revenue sources for carmakers in the near future.
