BuzzFeed News has obtained an internal email from the Australian arm of Omnicom’s media buying business, OMD, that suggests global brands have been demanding their banner advertising be removed from the alt-right news source.

The agency, which counts among its clients global behemoths McDonald’s, Apple, and Unilever, and Australian giants Telstra, Wesfarmers, and Qantas, cited the social media campaign Sleeping Giants, which works to shame global brands on Twitter for advertising on “racist websites” such as Breitbart.

“An alt-right ‘news’ website called Breitbart has been gaining a lot of attention at the moment, with brands who advertise on this site being called out by a Twitter following called Sleeping Giants,” reads the email.

“Although the content [on Breitbart] is pretty unpalatable for most, it isn’t illegal or prohibited by most exchanges such as Google’s [Google Display Network].

“Many of our global clients have already requested that we block this site on our activity.”

An employee for the agency described it to BuzzFeed News as a “preventative measure”, as online advertising is assigned to websites algorithmically.

Omnicom handpicks the sites their clients’ ads run on, which is known as a whitelist, whereas ad exchanges or networks such as Google's typically work on a blacklist where brands specify which sites not to run on.



The email from management added: “If you are running activity through ad networks such as MediaIQ/Regital, Quantcast & RocketFuel it is worth reaching out to your rep and making sure Breitbart is blacklisted and request a URL level site report over the past 30 days which all should be able to provide.”

Breitbart has emerged as an aggressive cheerleader for US president Donald Trump in recent years.