Nordstrom, Warby Parker, And Etsy Have Stopped Advertising On Breitbart

Over the last five months, there’s been a steadfast movement to boycott stores that carry Trump family products. Amid the visible — and effective — #GrabYourWallet campaign, there’s been another type of advocacy rumbling, this one targeting companies for where they advertise. An anonymous group of activists who call themselves Sleeping Giants have been working since November to get brands to stop advertising on Breitbart, a conservative publication that’s the news source of choice for fans of Donald Trump and the so-called alt-right. Sleeping Giants’s mission is to stop “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and anti-Semitic news sites.” Almost 1,400 companies, including Nordstrom, Etsy, Warby Parker, Henri Bendel, Lululemon, Teva, Uniqlo, Sephora, Zappos, and the Honest Company, have stopped advertising on Breitbart. Surprised that Breitbart was a partner of Jessica Alba’s personal care and beauty brand or yoga favorite Lululemon in the first place? Well, it’s not technically. Online advertising is far more complicated than one company (say, a fashion brand) cutting a check to another company (say, a news site) for the privilege of running an ad. Companies often place ads through third-party advertisers like AppNexus or RocketFuel, which buy programmatic ads that are run by bots, not directly by humans. Read more at Racked.