Unilever plc (NYSE:UL) stock was up 2.12% at the bottom of the noon hour on February 12. The company owns over 400 brands, including Axe/Lynx, Dove, Lipton, Rama, and others.
Unilever reported a strong fourth quarter in which it saw underlying sales rise 4% - beating analyst expectations. However, there were still concerns over a price slowdown in some of its premier brands including Ben & Jerry’s and Dove. The company delivered a dividend of $0.45 per share representing a 3.1% dividend yield.
Keith Weed, the chief marketing officer at Unilever, is expected to lay criticism on social media companies in a conference on Monday in California. Unilever will reportedly threaten to pull advertising from social media giants like Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and Alphabet Inc. if the companies do not take major steps to “clean up” online content. Unilever is the largest online media buyer in the world.
Facebook, Twitter, and Google have already taken significant steps to censor content after continued pressure from U.S. intelligence agencies who have asserted that “Russian meddling” influenced the 2016 election. In its fourth quarter report, Facebook lost daily users for the first time in the U.S. and Canada. Twitter, on the other hand, reported profitability for the first time since going public in its fourth quarter report.
For Unilever, the comments signal its anxiety over growing polarization in a commercial space. One only has to look at the turmoil at Papa Johns Int’l Inc., which was playfully endorsed by the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, after its founder and CEO John Schnatter criticized the NFL’s handling of player protests. Papa Johns quickly condemned the website and pulled back on its comments, but the damage was done.
Unilever and other companies want to avoid political hang ups in the future, so it is no surprise that steps are being taken to pressure social media companies to cleanse a combative online environment.
