Meta ad campaign aims to sway public opinion of data centres

The advertisement began with a panning shot of Altoona, Iowa, a town of 20,000 near Des Moines.

- ELI TAN

A scene from an ad about Altoona, Iowa, part of a campaign by Meta to shape a new narrative around data centres.

(NYT)

The camera moved from a diner to a farm to a high school football field. To the pluck of guitar strings, a voice-over promoted a boon for the local economy.

“We're bringing jobs here,’ the ad said. “For us, and for our next generation.”

The ad’s folksy vibes were not for a political candidate. They were for a data centre that Meta had built in Altoona — part of an ad campaign by the Silicon Valley giant to shape a new narrative around the vast computing facilities that power artificial intelligence.

Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have embarked on a building spree in the Al race, investing hundreds of billions of dollars to erect data centres to develop the technology. In doing so, they have fuelled an increasingly political issue, with President Donald Trump and lawmakers across the country criticising the computing sites for driving up energy costs and straining local water supplies.

So, in November and December, Meta spent $6.4 million to run a series of ads — including the one about Altoona — in the television markets of eight state capitals such as Sacramento, California; Salt Lake City; and Tallahassee, Florida; as well as Washington, DC, according to data from AdImpact, an analytics firm.

Meta most likely bought the ads “with the goal of shaping policy decisions” and reaching lawmakers, said Michael Beach, CEO of Cross Screen Media, a marketing analytics firm.