A new report from AdWeek has revealed that Disney, along with other major brands, have resumed advertising spending on X, formerly Twitter, after pausing late last year.
Disney Resumes Ad Spending on X
The New York Times broke the news of Disney’s pause on ad spending on November 17, 2023. The pause came in light of a controversy surrounding X owner Elon Musk and the platform placing ads for major companies alongside antisemitic content and hate speech.
According to AdWeek, Disney, Comcast, IBM, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment have all resumed ad spending on the social media platform, though “at much lower rates than before.” According to data from MediaRadar, these brands collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X from January to September 2024 — a 98% year-over-year drop from the $170 million spent during the same time period in 2023.
This data also shows that Disney specifically has only spent $550,000 on advertising on X in 2024.
In November 2023, Disney also paused its use of X, taking a 10-day break from the platform. This pause saw multiple Disney-related accounts stop using the platform during that period, including @WaltDisneyCo, @DisneyParks, @Pixar, @MarvelStudios, and @StarWars.
Following Disney’s temporary pause on use of X and its halt of ad spending, Musk called out Disney CEO Bob Iger, saying “go f**k yourself.” In December 2023, Musk continued his attacks on Iger via posts on X, calling for the CEO to be fired and said that “Walt Disney is turning in his grave.”
The drama continued in February 2024, when actor Gina Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm over her firing from “The Mandalorian” in 2021. Musk signed on to fund the lawsuit. Ahead of the Q1 FY2024 earnings call for The Walt Disney Company, Iger only had a one-word reply to offer regarding his response to Musk and the lawsuit from Carano: “None.”
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