One of Elon Musk’s missteps at Twitter is the introduction of the $8 subscription service for blue check verification, which has since then been rolled back.
What Happened: The service, while it was on, wreaked havoc on companies, celebrities, institutions and even governments, as fake accounts impersonating legitimate accounts spread damaging messages on Twitter, using the verified account authentication provided by the blue tick badge.
Fake Lilly’s Free Lunch Offer: One such affected party was large-cap pharma Eli Lilly & Company LLY. A fake account claiming to be that of the company tweeted late on Thursday that the diabetes drug insulin would be offered free of cost.
About $15.6 billion was wiped away from Lilly’s market cap on Friday following the tweet, as investors, fearing the impact of such a move on the company’s bottom line, dumped the stock.
Stunned by the turn of events and fearing a hit to its brand reputation, Lilly promptly called Twitter, urging them to take down the fake
account, although the company did not react for hours, Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Lilly Reacts: By Friday morning, Lilly executives ordered the halting of all ad campaigns on Twitter and also paused the company’s Twitter publishing plan for all corporate accounts world over, the report said.
“For $8, they’re potentially losing out on millions of dollars in ad revenue,” said Amy O’Connor, a former senior communications official at Eli Lilly, according to the report. It's not worth staying on the platform when patient trust and health are on the line, she added.
Although Lilly hasn’t confirmed its ad spend, it is one of the world’s biggest pharma companies, selling blockbuster drugs such as Prozac for treating depression, and Trulicity and Humalog for diabetes, the report said.
Apart from its main corporate Twitter account @LillyPad, it also has separate stand-alone accounts for diabetes care, European health policy, rheumatology, clinical trials and dissemination of health information in Spanish, Italian and French.
Lilly spends over $100 million per year on TV commercials and digital ad campaigns in the U.S., the report said, citing marketing data firm MediaRadar.
Price Action: Lilly closed Monday’s session at $356.06, up 1.35%, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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