Facebook’s New Campaign Defends Targeted Advertising Business

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. launched a new marketing effort to promote targeted advertising, its core business model, which has been the center of a clash over privacy between the social network and Apple Inc.

The campaign defends targeted advertising as beneficial to small businesses with tiny budgets and niche clientele, especially while the Covid outbreak has forced many retail stores to close and pushed consumers online. Facebook will run ads featuring clients on the web, radio and during TV programs like “Good Morning America” and the Golden Globes awards show.

The tagline for the marketing effort is: “Good ideas deserve to be found. Personalized ads help you find them.”

While Facebook executives say the campaign is driven by a realization that small businesses are struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic, the company is in a public war with Apple over the future of targeted advertising on iPhones. An upcoming Apple software update could limit the data Facebook collects about iPhone users, which the social media company uses to help customize its advertising. Apple said the changes are intended to better inform people about how their personal information is used.

Facebook has argued that Apple’s changes will be bad for small businesses. In December, Facebook took out full-page newspaper ads in a number of U.S. papers to defend its business practices.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.