WFA dissolves brand safety coalition GARM following X lawsuit

Days after being named in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's social media platform X, the World Federation of Advertisers is discontinuing all activities for its Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative, "with immediate effect."

As first reported by Business Insider, WFA chief executive Stephan Loerke sent an email to members saying that the decision was "not made lightly," while pointing out that GARM is a not-for-profit organization with limited resources.

The X lawsuit accuses GARM and its members of ilegally colluding to withhold billions of dollars in ad revenue from X (formerly Twitter). It also named several major marketers including Unilever, Mars, and CVS.

Loerke reportedly said that WFA and GARM planned to contest X's allegations, and expressed confidence that the outcome would "demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities."

GARM was formed by the WFA in the wake of a mass shooting in New Zealand that was originally broadcast on, and later shared through, social channels in 2019.

Working with marketers, social media companies and ad agencies, WFA's goal was to help the industry tackle illegal or harmful content on the various digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising.

While ad industry experts characterised this week's lawsuit as everything from frivolous to distrous for the social media platform, the dissolution of GARM seems to represent a short-term victory for X.

"No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized," said CEO Linda Yaccarino in a post on Thursday afternoon. "This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming."

The decision has also angered advocacy groups like Check My Ads, which sent an email critical of the WFA and its members. "It looks like advertising leaders like PepsiCo and Mastercard want so badly to stay away from Elon Musk that they would rather close the brand safety working group GARM than deal with his bullying," read the email.

The group expressed confidence that the decision means even more advertisers will abandon X so as not to be targeted in the future. They will no longer rely on GARM, and instead assume more responsibility for where their ads appear, it continued.

"Everyone can see that advertising on X is a treacherous business relationship for advertisers," it said. "And we know, based on public reporting, X doesn’t have all that many too lose."

Ruben Schreurs, chief strategy officer at Ebiquity, told Campaign U.S that GARM’s erasure sets a “dangerous precedent in general, but now specifically in the advertising industry.”

“Litigation should not be allowed to be weaponized in a way where organizations can be hamstrung by overwhelming and unwarranted legal pressures from better-funded plaintiffs,” he said.

WFA boasts that GARM has been successful in helping reduce the number of unsafe brand environments, citing data from Integral Ad Science showing that the percentage of brand media impressions against harmful content decreased from 6.2% in 2019 to 1.7% in 2023.

However, Campaign U.S. said that GARM's dissolution comes as advertisers are losing confidence in the various brand safety tools at their disposal.

On Wednesday, Adalytics reported finding hundreds of ads next to explicitly racist and sexual content, despite those ads being served using brand safety controls from Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify.

Rich Raddon, Zefr cofounder and co-CEO, told Campaign U.S. that GARM’s work establishing common frameworks for brand safety contributed to more accurate and transparent brand safety reporting. “Let's hope the industry doesn't retreat back into the dark ages where every placement, no matter the risky content adjacency, is considered 99.9% brand safe,” he said.

And Noah Mallin, former head of IMGN Brand Studio at Warner Music Group, and current social media consultant, suggested X could use GARM’s dissolution to flex its strength against other advertisers.

“GARM was the weakest part of the announced parties to the lawsuit in terms of ability to fight with legal firepower,” he said. “In that sense, they are meant to be a head on the pike to make it seem dangerous to criticize X as a platform.”

-With files from Campaign U.S.