SAN FRANCISCO — Citing the economic fallout from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, online education platform Masterclass has announced that the company will slash its advertising budget down to $20 trillion.
“Carving a path forward involves getting lean with advertising,” said Masterclass CEO David Rogier on a call with investors. “Right now, we can only afford spending the entire GDP of the United States on ads. And that will lead to many tough choices in our overall marketing strategy.”
Rogier said the budget rollback was effective immediately, as evidenced by changes in the company’s usual advertising spaces.
“Facebook users will notice a sharp decrease in Masterclass advertisements,” read a post from Masterclass Chief Marketing Officer David Schriber. “Normally, users could expect roughly 5,000 ads per day for classic courses like ‘Wolfgang Puck Teaches Cooking.’ Now, they may only see a thousand. It’s gutting.”
A twenty-two page marketing rebrand presentation went out to skittish investors, affirming details big and small in Masterclass’s new strategy.
One portion of the ‘Global Strategy’ page read, “Masterclass has historically spent $150,000 on advertising to every single human being on planet Earth. One of our major hurdles now is to select several thousand of Earth’s residents who will no longer receive ads.”
Among the line-item cuts was a massive reduction in physical advertising: “Effective at the end of this quarter, we will suspend our fleet of planes towing ‘Join Masterclass!’ banners across the skies of remote regions of Turkmenistan,”
Despite the monumental rollback, some social media users expressed feelings that Masterclass’s online footprint remained strong.
“HOW DO I GET RID OF MASTERCLASS ADS?!!!?!!? MAKE THEM STOP!!!” said Facebook user Angelica Ramirez in a post that was liked over two hundred and fifty times.
At press time, this article was immediately followed by a Masterclass ad in your feed.
Listen to the season finale of our podcast, The Ace Watkins Presidential Hour:
