Mobile protest billboard circles Amazon’s Seattle HQ urging Brietbart ad embargo
Self-proclaimed advertising guardians Sleeping Giants is driving a mobile billboard around Seattle to pressure Amazon, one of the world’s largest retailers, into dropping ads it is programmatically serving on rightwing news site Breitbart.
Sleeping Giants' mobile billboard
The group has pressured a reported 2,250 brands from advertising on Breitbart but getting a company the size of Amazon on board would likely be a major blow to the funding of the Conservative blog that has the ear of president Donald Trump.
Now, the billboard van is reportedly driving around Amazon’s Seattle headquarters. It reads "Amazon, Stop Funding Bigotry. Please Pull Your Ads From Breitbart".
The escalation in messaging comes as Sleeping Giants claims its appeals have been ignored. Buzzfeed News spoke to someone from the group who claimed they hadn’t heard back from Amazon over call or email for eight months. Undoubtfully, this activity will have garnered attention in Amazon HQ's war room.
Back in June, Digiday reported that brands advertising on Breitbart has dropped by 90% in a mere month as the boycotts gathered momentum. As a result, it appears that the campaign to deprive the site of funding is working.
It marks the first time the Sleeping Giants has brought its advertising protest into the wider world, previously being combined to social media initiatives. As the initiative was effective in grabbing headlines, the anonymous group could chose to use more outdoor advertising to tackle wayward programmatic spend from the world's top brands.
Well, if you can't get a response from a company online or on the phone, you can always try in-person.
Look out, Seattle. Here we come. pic.twitter.com/pqRzmJ0mIw
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) June 19, 2017