I just read this interesting take on “Wolf Street” about GM suspending their advertising on Twitter because Elon Musk now owns it. The argument is that they don’t want to advertise on a platform owned by a competitor because the competitor would gain an advantage by learning info about your products, customers etc. Sounds right on the surface, but is it really? The competitor can still get that info in the marketplace as buying habits for auto customers(like any type of customers) are out there in various forms, so no secret. The more important takeaway is, if you have a competitive product (in this case cars and trucks) why would you restrict yourself from showcasing those procducts on a platform that has a very high level of engagement with your potential customers? It isn’t a balanced tradeoff. We aren’t talking about proprietary secrets that your competitor is gaining just because you use his platform to reach potential customers. The best solution that GM and other vehicle manufactures could do is put in clauses in your advertising agreements with Twitter(and other platforms) that you receive all pertinent customer data generated by your ads on their platform. I doubt Twitter, or any other platform would risk losing those add dollars by refusing to supply such data. Even if they did, would GM or any other vehicle company actually be better off by foregoing the benefits of advertising on such a widely used platform, even without the data, I seriously doubt it.

Advertise on a Competitor’s Social Media Platform? Um, that Would Be a Hoot… GM “Paused” Ads on Musk’s Twitter