Following a late-night meeting with Facebook on Thursday, Meningitis Now has been told that the social networking site will not back down on disallowing an advert for its Don’t Wait for a Rash campaign, which features an image of a skin rash commonly associated with the infection.
This follows events in September, when Facebook reversed an initial decision to ban an advert produced by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) after discussions with the charity, and earlier this month, when the site backed down on a decision about another Meningitis Now advert. There had been some expectation that the discussion with Facebook executives in the US would result in another reversal, but the site has stood by its initial decision.
“The image of the banned advert features an image of glass being pressed against a rash and is part of a campaign designed to educate the 34 million UK adults who wrongly believe a rash is the primary symptom of meningitis, while it can actually be a late symptom and is not always present,” says Thomas Davis, social media manager for Meningitis Now. “The removal of such adverts affects the charity’s ability to communicate lifesaving information during the peak season for meningitis.”
Facebook staff got in touch with the charity after seeing media coverage around the ban. “They told us they still believe the image will be seen as negative by audiences,” said Davis. “Their advertising guidelines state that you aren’t allowed to promote a health product by focusing on an ideal body image. This is clearly not what we’ve done, but they have decided the image is too negative. We think the image is quite mild; I have seen far more shocking images of meningitis.”
The charity is now looking at a range of alternative ways to run the campaign at the suggestion of Facebook. “Quite kindly, they’re going to review any changes at the same level within the company and we hope to be able to go ahead with our full campaign. Facebook is a vital component in reaching our audience,” says Davis.
The uncertainties around this campaign add to the previous confusion over the RNIB advert and another advert, produced by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, earlier in the year. But a number of figures within the charities have said they stand firm in taking approaches which can be seen by some, including Facebook, as gratuitously shocking or employing scare tactics.
Devia Gurjar, senior manager for strategic marketing and planning at RNIB, says the charity was pleased the ban was revoked after media coverage detailing the issue. But she said the whole situation was “quite confusing”.
The video advert for the RNIB’s #seetheneed campaign, which aims to highlight the need for sight loss advisers in every UK hospital, asked people to imagine what it would be like to lose their sight. Facebook claimed the advert was degrading and broke its guidelines on language. But the day after an article appeared on the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network Facebook staff said they had made a mistake.
“Our Facebook account manager initially said there seemed to be an issue with the script, that we weren’t allowed to be ‘accusing’,” says Gurjar. “But he said the situation was odd because he understood that a charity would want to put people in others’ shoes. His suggestion was to rephrase text to something like: ‘What if this was the moment you could have lost your sight?’.
“We tried but it didn’t work and we would have had to re-shoot and re-record, and the cost wasn’t feasible. But then they changed their mind. The sales support team said that Facebook wasn’t keen on ‘directly asserting the physical condition of the audience’ and wanted to offer its audience an assurance that adverts promote a safe community and maintain their trust. We’re pleased they acknowledged the mistakes and we know that mistakes happen.”
Over the summer, the RNLI was asked by Facebook to change a line in one of its videos so its Respect the Water campaign could be carried on the site. Nathan Murray, social media content manager for the RNLI, explains: “Working with our media agency, we were able to explain to Facebook that the videos were created after research showed that a hard-hitting tone was important in reaching the target audience: 18 to 39-year-old men. Facebook agreed to approve both videos so long as we made minor amends to one of the films – this definitely made a difference to the success of the campaign, as through Facebook we reached over 19 million people, resulting in nearly 84,000 likes, comments and shares, exceeding all targets set.”
Facebook has said that adverts were checked by a specialist team and that its guidelines must be more stringent than for normal content, because advert content is boosted into the news feeds of up to 1.55 billion people. The company has also explained that their policies must apply on an enormous scale and that while the guidelines exist to strike a balance, there are grey areas.
• This article was amended on 23 November 2015. An earlier version directly quoted comments from a Facebook spokesman that were given for background information only.
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