BobW
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [but will the kids play along?]
>
> <http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=121806>
>
> Facebook's Big Ad Plan: If Users Like You, They'll
> Be Your Campaign
> Zuckerberg's Big Unveiling Leaves Some Marketers
> Salivating at Access
> to Social Graph
>
> By Abbey Klaassen
>
> NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- About 150 clients (and a few
> reporters) were
> packed into a long, narrow room in a West Manhattan
> rental space
> today to hear Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declare
> that the days of
> waste in media targeting were over and tout a new
> "pull marketing"
> era in which consumers voluntarily endorse the
> brands and products
> they like.
>
> Using social data, Mr. Zuckerberg said, Facebook
> will "help you
> create some of the best ad campaigns you've ever
> built." He was
> onstage to unveil Facebook Ads, a system by which
> marketers can marry
> an ad message to a user-initiated endorsement of a
> product or service.
>
> Sharing in the brand engagement
>
> Tactically, it's not an easy concept to explain. The
> first part
> involves user-initiated recommendations of a brand:
> When people visit
> a business' Facebook page, they can choose to share
> their engagement
> with the band (by becoming a "fan" or writing on the
> brand's "wall")
> with their peer network using a newsfeed or
> mini-feed. Facebook users
> can also share their interaction on a brand's own
> website through a
> program coined Beacon. For example, users can share
> with their
> network when they post an item for sale on eBay,
> rent a movie on
> Blockbuster.com or rate a book on Amazon.com.
>
> The idea is that communication moves not from the
> brand to the
> consumer but from the consumer to his or her friends
> and family.
>
> Then there's the actual paid-advertising part:
> Facebook will permit
> advertisers to attach an ad message to those user
> notifications. To
> do so, marketers make a Facebook ad buy targeting
> users by any number
> of traits users volunteer on their profiles, such as
> age, political
> leanings or interests and activities. Facebook will
> then serve up
> those ads -- fairly simple text-plus-graphic
> creative -- either
> without the social element or, if a friend has sent
> notification of a
> brand engagement, within that.
>
> "We are putting advertising back in the hands of
> people," said
> Chamath Palihapitiya, VP-product marketing and
> operations, Facebook.
> He said it would create a system for user
> recommendations "so ads are
> less like ads and more like information and
> content."
>
> Facebook is offering the Beacon placement and
> branded pages for free.
> In return, the social-networking site gains access
> to potentially
> valuable targeting data about what kinds of brands
> users interact with.
>
> A Trojan Horse
>
> "It's a brilliant Trojan Horse," said Mark Kingdon,
> CEO of Organic.
> Overall, he called the platform "a natural
> evolution, both advertiser-
> friendly and user-friendly."
>
> Marketer reaction ranged from modest skepticism to
> major enthusiasm.
>
> Jeffrey Glueck, chief marketing officer at
> Travelocity, which was a
> launch partner of Facebook's Social Ads platform,
> said he was excited
> about the opportunities, but he admitted his brand
> has an inherent
> social aspect to it.
>
> "Travel is very social, people like to talk about
> travel, invite
> their friends ... and Facebook users like to share
> information with
> friends," he said.
>
> James Warner, exec VP-Avenue A/Razorfish East
> Region, said he liked
> the ability to linking a user action into an ad.
> "It's unique," he
> said, reservedly.
>
> John Harrobin, senior VP-marketing and digital media
> at Verizon, was
> perhaps the most effusive, calling it exciting in
> the same way
> Google's launch of AdWords was exciting. The
> difference, he said, is
> Facebook's plan not only drives ads to those people
> who are in the
> bottom of the sales funnel but also the overall
> marketing effort.
>
> "This lets us tap into the Facebook community's
> potential to drive
> results," he said.
>
> But will consumers share?
>
> Still, the service hinges on several things, not the
> least of which
> is users wanting to share their purchase behavior
> with friends. The
> targeting aspect assumes people honestly share their
> profile info. It
> also doesn't take into account what is happening in
> the offline
> world. (To hear Mr. Zuckerberg describe it, Facebook
> is the
> reflection of people's connections in the offline
> world.)
>
> Rob Norman, CEO of Group M Interaction, blogged
> about the
> announcement and said it was encouraging concept but
> also posed a
> "massive challenge in reputation management and just
> one more
> destination to deal with in terms of driving the
> traffic with
> messaging that shapes opinion." He cautioned that
> clutter could
> become impenetrable, that people who share
> information about brands
> with friends might not actually like that being
> co-opted by
> advertisers; an easy slip up could, of course,
> broadcast something
> like a porn purchase to an entire social network.
>
> There needs to be, he wrote, some "smart thinking
> about how to
> harvest the eggs without killing the golden goose."
>
>
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