Decline of the Facebook Brand Has Been Steady

Facebook’s brand reputation in the United States is on a steady downward slope, as whistleblower Frances Haugen adds to the pile of controversies that have engulfed the social media giant in recent years, according to Morning Consult. 

But these scandals aren’t dragging down Facebook’s advertisers, and the platform is still boasting healthy favorability ratings abroad and usage metrics in the United States.

When considering brand reputation, it’s important to keep two things in mind: News doesn’t always penetrate as deep as you might think, and consumers have short memories. Most brand scandals cause temporary, mostly online uproar, and are largely forgotten six months later.

For Facebook, however, it’s not one imbroglio, but a constant drumbeat of scandals that has caused its reputation to slowly decline in the United States.

Facebook’s favorability rating slump started in March 2018, when news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

Prior to this major news event, just 18 percent of U.S. adults held a negative view of the company. That has steadily increased to 35 percent today. The brand’s net favorability in the United States has halved since Morning Consult began tracking it in October 2016, from 40 percentage points then to 20 points today. This data is pulled from Morning Consult Brand Intelligence, which tracks thousands of brands in more than a dozen countries.