• by Colin Kirkland , December 15, 2023

Three of the largest U.S. companies -- Disney, Comcast and Paramount -- have increased advertising spending on other social platforms -- including Instagram and Snapchat -- weeks after pausing their ads on X, highlighting the aftermath of the recent brand exodus from the app formerly known as Twitter due to the rise of antisemitic content.

According to data from marketing insight company Sensor Tower, Disney upped its spending on Instagram in the U.S. by 40%, while Comcast upped its spending on the Meta-owned app by 6% in the two weeks from November 20.

Paramount tripled its spending on Snapchat, a platform the company has partnered with this past August via an in-app Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle AR Lens.

The actions taken by these companies may predict an ongoing trend as X continues to suffer from advertisers' decision to pause or permanently cease spending in lieu of the rise of harmful and hateful content on the platform, especially against the Jewish community, as well as owner Elon Musk's recent verbal attack on advertisers at The New York Times’ DealBook event.

Sensor Tower reports that by November, ad spending was paused by more than half of the top 100 U.S. advertisers that were originally spending on the social-messaging platform in October 2022.

Not long before Musk's public episode, The Times reported that the companies who had already pulled ad spending would cost X around $75 million in revenue.

The company generated just over $600 million in ad revenue in the first three quarters of 2023 and is expecting a similar number this current quarter, according to Bloomberg, which reported this week that X is now on track to bring in roughly $2.5 billion in ad revenue for the year, marking a notable slump compared to prior years.

Since Musk's takeover last year, X has also experienced a 16% decline in monthly active users, with user engagement still remaining somewhat stable.