Mass layoffs at Twitter: Pause ads, agencies in India advise clients

IPG, Dentsu have informally spoken to their advertisers

The uncertainty around Twitter going for mass layoffs last week after takeover by billionaire Elon Musk has prompted advertisers to take a cautious approach towards the platform.

Ad and media agencies in India, including big names such as Interpublic (IPG) group and Dentsu, have informally asked their clients to pause or go slow with advertising on the platform, industry sources said. This comes as much of the India team has been asked to leave and content moderation will be a challenge, the sources said.

IPG Mediabrands, for instance, has clients such Cred, ITC, Mahindra & Mahindra, MG Motors and Amul, among others, on its roster. Dentsu, on the other hand, has names such as Maruti Suzuki, Ikea, Carslberg, Tata Motors, Reliance Jio on its list.

Executives at the two agency groups were not immediately available for comment. But other agency groups such as GroupM, Zenith, Madison Media are also having similar discussions with their clients as they attempt to take stock of the situation at Twitter.

Globally, names such as the Volkswagen group, Pfizer, General Mills, General Motors and Mondelez have all temporarily paused advertising on the social media platform.

Names such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble may pause advertising globally, industry sources said, given that the mass layoffs have left a vacuum in the company. New owner Musk has maintained that the layoffs, which constituted half of its nearly 8,000-strong global workforce, had to be done to bring down costs. In India, almost 180 of its 230 people have been asked to go across departments such as marketing, sales and content curation.

While Twitter accounts for less than Rs 100 crore in terms of annual advertising in India when compared to peers such as Google and Meta, it is a powerful platform from the point of view of trending topics, said Shrenik Gandhi, co-founder and CEO of Mumbai-based digital marketing agency, White Rivers Media.

To put things in perspective, Google and Meta corner almost 85 per cent (or Rs 41,000 crore) of India’s digital advertising market of about Rs 48,000 crore, according to GroupM. The balance Rs 7,000 crore includes advertising on platforms such as Amazon and other digital and social media channels. Twitter is also part of this list, experts said. 

“Twitter helps you understand the subjects or individuals in vogue online. Trending topics become important because it gives you a sense of what is really working or not working on social media,” Gandhi says.

Sajal Gupta, CEO of Gurugram-based Kiaos Marketing, a media and marketing consultancy, says despite miniscule advertising, Twitter is still powerful in terms of reach. According to Statista, Twitter’s user base in India stood at 23.6 million in January this year.

“From a reach perspective, Twitter is still a strong social media platform,” Gupta says.