Meta's AI-powered Meta Glasses launch sparked immediate controversy over surveillance concerns and the use of Kylie Jenner as the face of the product, with reputation experts warning the campaign carries significant reputational risk.
The June 23 Australian launch introduced three new frame styles across 26 style combinations, including Meta Adventurer, Meta Fury and Meta Glasses by Kylie Jenner.
The glasses come equipped with photo and video capture, open-ear audio, live translation and a hands-free AI assistant, with pedestrian navigation and AI-powered camera features to follow.
The product immediately drew public backlash, with concerns centring on the potential to film people without their knowledge or consent.
"Issues like the way that people can effectively be filmed without any informed consent or opt-in," said Adrian Elton, creative director at Adrian Elton Creative.
"Issues like the recent scandal involving the unauthorised filming of profoundly private moments, (featuring people's privates doing profoundly private things), which were subsequently viewed by Meta employees in Kenya.
“If that doesn't give you big 'ick' energy, I don't know what would?"
Much of the controversy has also centred on Kylie Jenner's endorsement, with her campaign promoting the glasses frequently contrasted online with footage of her lamenting feeling constantly surveilled by paparazzi, a contradiction that drew widespread criticism.
Matt Thomas, founder of Stake: The Reputation Company, said it was important to view the campaign as a reputation strategy wrapped into a product launch rather than a straightforward celebrity endorsement.
"The choice of Kylie Jenner tells me Meta understands that the next challenge isn't technical adoption, it's social adoption," said Thomas.
"Kylie is one of the world's most influential cultural figures, particularly among young women, a demographic that has historically been less inclined to adopt wearable technology.
“Her role isn't to explain the product. It's to make the product feel culturally relevant, desirable and normal."
Thomas explained Meta’s campaign was high risk, high reward.
"If consumers believe the campaign is attempting to make legitimate concerns feel less important, rather than demonstrating how those concerns have been addressed, then the communications risk becoming part of the controversy rather than resolving it," he said.
"One of the fundamental principles of reputation is that every campaign is interpreted through the reputation a company already has.
“Meta doesn't launch this product with a blank slate — it does so carrying years of debate around privacy, data governance, youth safety and regulation.
“That means consumers are likely to judge this campaign through that existing lens."
Elton said the use of Jenner was a deliberate move to target the women's market, but questioned whether it would be enough to overcome the product's underlying issues.
"The decision to market the Meta Glasses to the female market via a collaboration with Kylie Jenner doesn't seem like a particularly radical leap from a marketing perspective," said Elton.
"Borrowed interest via celebrity endorsement is even older than George Clooney shilling for Nespresso.
“The bigger question is whether this re-packaging will be enough to overcome the glaring issues lurking just beneath the surface of those shiny and bejewelled sunglass lenses."
Alex D'Asta, associate account director at Cubery, said Jenner's involvement would likely soften the product's surveillance associations with it’s re-association with fashion and culture.
"Combined with the shape of the frames themselves — which tap into current fashion trends — I'd anticipate a surge in adoption from demographics who may have been less naturally drawn to the category previously," said D'Asta.
For advertisers, the campaign has forced brands to re-consider if Meta's broader corporate behaviour aligns with their brand values.
Robert Nagy, general manager of product and operations at Yango, said Meta's push into hardware was forcing brands to re-evaluate their overall risk tolerance.
"Historically, brand safety on Meta has been strictly about platform content — adjacency to hate speech, misinformation, or inappropriate videos," said Nagy.
"What we are seeing now is a shift where the hardware and physical product ecosystem of a tech giant is carrying its own reputational baggage.
“When a platform's physical product is repeatedly associated with breaches of consent and privacy, we have to ask whether that overarching corporate brand still aligns with our clients' business values and CSR policies.
"It doesn't necessarily mean an immediate pause on media spend, but it forces brands to re-evaluate their overall risk tolerance in relation to their brand reputation."
Nagy explained if community resentment continued to build, budgets would walk.
"Commercially, associating your brand with a platform facing intense public and celebrity backlash is a direct threat to brand equity,” said Nagy.
“It becomes a formal factor the moment consumer sentiment — particularly among women, who are a crucial demographic for so many of our clients — shifts from mild discomfort to active alienation
"Right now, we have major celebrities openly trashing the product on stage and some courts banning the hardware outright.
“Media investment follows consumer attention and trust. If Meta is perceived as enabling a hostile environment, brands will naturally migrate their budgets to platforms deemed safer and more socially responsible."
He believes advertisers have a moral responsibility to direct budgets towards ethically sound environments.
"Advertisers have a clear responsibility to ensure their dollars aren't inadvertently subsidising technology that causes demonstrable harm or normalises non-consensual behaviour,” said Nagy.
“We advise our clients to vote with their budgets: reward platforms that prioritise user and brand safety, and hold back from those that don't — while balancing that against results."
Maija Gwynn, general manager at Lexlab, took a different view, arguing advertisers would continue to invest in Meta regardless of the backlash.
"Advertisers have benefited from Meta's lax approach to privacy for years now, and previous controversies (remember Cambridge Analytica?) didn't significantly change the dollars being spent in the longer term," said Gwynn.
"So I don't think the concern surrounding Meta Glasses will tip the scales against them, when this is just one of a growing list of morally dubious features Meta has rolled out.
“The quiet inclusion of facial recognition into the Meta Glasses app is, in my view, even more worrying than filming without consent, and the recent launch of Muse (wound back only after consumer backlash) is staggering.
"Brands of all sizes will continue to spend their media dollars with Meta to chase ROAS.
“If budgets were based on the ethics and societal benefits of a media platform, the media spend landscape would look vastly different."
Gwynn said the Jenner contradiction illustrated why influencer marketing required careful consideration.
"Influencers are human. This is what makes them appealing to their followers, and subsequently advertisers, but it inherently comes with contradiction and unpredictability," she said.
"Brands should do their due diligence on any creator contracts they enter, including their previously endorsed products and their stance on any issues that might prove sensitive.
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