Is there a reason why advertisers don't like ads next to adult content? Is there an actual study that shows ads in this form are less valuable?
Tumblr's interest and traffic has been on a long decline, this deviates or accelerates the decline but who knows by how much, maybe it only sped up Tumblr's demise by 12 months ( https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge... )
I suspect the real story here was budget cuts, and moderation was a big cost center. They did a half ass job and got shitty results. The users are not going to return. I suspect they will be completely shut down or kicked back and forth between buyers indefinitely, like Myspace. These sorts of consumer web brands never seem to come back after a screw up and I doubt Tumblr is going to be an exception.
There is a lot to be said about the Berkshire Hathaway way of just managing companies for the long term, not only when there isn't any growth but as they are shrinking.
Let’s not forget that this is not about whether to spend money or not - it’s about where to spend money. Advertisers have countless options for where and how to advertise, so it makes sense to shift money to more boring, safe platforms where the ROI is almost identical anyway.
This whole ad-based internet needs to die.
Ads are an important means for companies to get the word out for stuff you might want and they're in more places than the internet.
The industry suffers from inefficiencies, surely, but it's still net beneficial.
Someday we might have fewer ads, and better ads that we really want to see.
If you ever get into a position where you have a company, and you run ads, and you see how it affects your business, you might have a different view. For example, I'm helping with a small new business making a very cool niche product - they'd be dead without FB ads because only FB offers the kind of targeting necessary (just basic demographics really). None of us are big fans of FB but the business would not exist without them.
Businesses that have more scale and bigger budgets can hit demos a little easier, but there's only two real games in town for many businesses: G and FB.
And of course, we would never, ever advertise near porn, not for a second. In fact - if we felt that 'Tumblr' became well known or synonymous with porn, we wouldn't advertise there. As far as G, well, they have porn, but for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to affect their brand.
I don't understand how the first and last sentence are compatible, unless you're saying that you'd never advertise near a brand known for porn, and don't care otherwise? That's not a very principled stance, and it really does seem wastefully harmful to a lot of sites.
For example, advertisers do not want their ads shown before a youtube clip if it contains porn.
Google is not seen as a 'porn brand' because ostensibly they are just technology - they help you find stuff.
Tumblr had a problem in that a considerable portion of their content was porn.
If it happens that Google develops this popular attribution, i.e. they are known as a 'porn brand' - then people would advertise there, but I don't think this will ever be the case.
FYI - Google also has some content controls, they don't have ads for porn, they don't promote it etc.
Again, this is very easy social math. The 'proof' is not in any of my statements, rather, it's the consistent application by basically every ad agency: they don't want their ads with porn. But they're ok with their ads on a site that may happen to show it if there isn't a branding concern and there obviously is not with Google.
That‘s why I said the „I build something neat that people wanna use and when I have enough users I exploit the shit out of them“ aka ad-based business model needs to die.
Putting a banner on some popular place is ok, but it devolved in the current mess due to market forces and I'm not really sure we can fix advertising with enough regulation.
But I think there's probably a very simple answer. People in the mood for porn are going to be substantially focused on the content they're after, rather than getting distracted by your ad. Contrast this against something like a cat pic. Ah that's cute -- then 2 seconds later your mind and attention is wondering, ideally right on over to their ad. The porn ends up being a much worse value proposition than the cat pic, or more generally than any rapidly consumed low-effort low-intensity content.
I think the exact same can also explain why advertisers prefer to avoid 'controversial' content. I expect the advertisers ostensibly kowtowing to social media outrage mobs are mostly just using them as useful idiots. They point out controversial and likely highly immersive content. Pulling out not only gets them a few social media white knight points, but also generally results in some degree of controversy which also helps spread their brand name effectively working as free advertising. You might even get things such as people deciding to follow you on social media as a means of virtue signaling. This also points to another ironic point that I think supports the above hypothesis. Advertisers are more than fine with controversy when they themselves are the controversy. See: e.g. Gillette that intentionally planned an advertising campaign exclusively around fanning the flames of a culture war.