IchabodNanger

More on the presentation here:
[seoroi.com]

Gabriel-Goldenberg

Next he will be wearing a sombrero or something.

andyfox1979

I hope you don't mind, but I had to add I just had to add "Get some real shoes you hippie Zuckerberg!" to my "Favorite Quotes" on facebook...

eastofwest

Some companies when offering a new product, they want the young, hip, trendsetters to know of it first; it's crucial it doesn't hit the mainstream before it hits them first. Think of Svedka Vodka's early campaign. Facebook may be the place for that theoretically, but in practice, as some wank above referred to, young people are pretty aware of being shilled to and it could backfire horribly.

But by and large, the companies aren't concerned with ROI or even how you feel about their product, just that it's been seeded in brains. The guy above who was all on about ROI obviously doesn't think marketing extends any further than the enterprise software or solutions company he happens to park his ass at a desk for. For something like a new candy, soda, shampoo, etc etc you need to know it exists and that its new before you'd even notice it on a shelf.

All of this being said, I think Facebook's CPM is especially a gyp. Look at how many PVs doing anything requires on Facebook and how quickly it happens. Just because an ad is "called" doesn't mean that it even loaded, and esp doesnt mean that anyone even saw it, most likely with that one skyscraper users have trained themselves to ignore that part of the screen.

If they're running a business, they're forgetting who their real customers are.

Get some real shoes you hippie Zuckerberg!

andyfox1979

Finally, if branding worked so well, how come NONE of the big ad agencies utilize them themselves?! Why don't they engage in these exercises? They too, after all, are big companies with many millions in revenue.

Any dollar spent on branding could be better spent somewhere else. I'd rather spend a dollar on PR than on branding.

@SlightlyLessDeliciousNoise: So what you're telling me, you love these controlled, sponsored forums where companies are free to mould the message and quell dissent any way they want?! What exactly does that get you?!

Why don't you rely on unbiased sources like enthusiast sites and Consumer Reports when purchasing a car?!

Figaro

Rick

MXB

Why? Simple. Young people like myself can sniff out fake, corporate-sponsored bullshit like "official groups" from a mile away. And as you go younger to demos like college-age, high school-age, and lower, the nerdier it is to join groups like that. And is simply joining a group really driving sales, profits, and metrics that actually matter (as opposed to "how many people are in the group" or "how many friend I have")? If you're going to join a group for, say, Dave Matthews Band or Apple in the first place, then you're already a fan. Otherwise, you wouldn't join it to begin with.

PolloDiablo

This Facebook situation reminds me a bit of Pathfinder when it was hot in 1995/96. We regularly charged $50K for a sponsored area. Why? Because we could. Advertisers got wise much later.

What I don't understand is why the only ads I see on Facebook are for college loans. And I'm 51 years old, a fact Facebook knows from my registration

Great targeting!

GhostSites

Keep in mind that Car X forums congregate brand champions. I know one of the first things I do when targeting a car for purchase is troll forums reading posts about the user experience, and I do it in Facebook, Google, etc. A prominent, well-constructed forum of brand champions could get a guy like me to buy a Car X and drive my interest in maintenance or aftermarket accessories from my Car X dealer.

A good forum isn't a strong marketer to those without an established interest in the product, but they're very convincing if other marketing efforts have already piqued my curiosity. It's part of a diversified basket of advertising that potentially enhances the value of the broad campaign.

SlightlyLessDeliciousNoise

@Figaro: Ok, so it seems clear that you do not run a Fortune 500 company that would engage in brand advertising. See it's tricky to sell cars online. It's even trickier to sell soda, or chewing gum. People do not click on ads and buy a package of Wrigley's Doublemint gum. Brand advertising has always been an inexact pursuit. Sure Google changed the game online. They made it a lot easier for you to peddle your widgets effectively and efficiently. Google did not make it a whole lot easier to sell chewing gum, soda, or cars. I'm not saying Facebook is the answer, but the metric of ROI does not work for every advertiser who is seeking to be effective online.

cheradenine

DUHMOMENT

Figaro

""Half the money I spend on ADVERTISING is wasted. The trouble is I don't know which half." In the United States this business truism is most often attributed to department store magnate John Wanamaker (1838-1922), in England to Lord Leverhulme (William H. Lever, founder of Lever Brothers, 1851-1925).

The maxim has also been ascribed to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, adman George Washington Hill, and adman David Ogilvy. In Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963), Ogilvy himself gave the nod to his fellow Englishman Lord Leverhulme (Lever Brothers was an Ogilvy client), adding that John Wanamaker later made the same observation.

Since Wanamaker founded his first department store in 1861, when Lever was ten, this seems unlikely. Fortune magazine thought Wanamaker expressed the famous adage in 1885, but it gave no context. While researching John Wanamaker, King of Merchants (1993), biographer William Allen Zulker found the adage typed on a sheet of paper in Wanamaker's archives, but without a name or source. Wanamaker usually wrote his own material longhand.

Verdict: A maxim of obscure origins, put in famous mouths."

adverlicious

Figaro

So, unless Jeep, for example, can calculate the clickthroughs and calculate how many of those people actually buy something, the money's wasted. Paying $300K for a facebook forum that has 1000 people (I'm guessing vast majority of those are Jeep owners already) is a gigantic waste of money.

Figaro

MATIC

Or perhaps I'm just a little disheartened that a little while ago after I approached them with an advertiser who was looking to spend fairly heavily, their crack team never even bothered to respond. To top it off, their Atlas publisher profile still describes the site as follows: "Facebook provides advertisers access to a verified student audience (all users must have a .edu address to join their university facebook site). Facebook provides precise targeting capability - advertisers can target by class year, age, gender, interests, etc."

Wow. They've obviously put a lot of time into developing their advertising programs.

fitt

In my view Facebook is offering products that have no peer in the online space: almost seamless integration within a highly visible and important area from a usage persepctive (the news feed) that can be coupled with complete control over a content area that's similarly integrated within the site itself from a functionality standpoint (the group page). For a planner putting together an online campaign for a big brand advertiser seeking to reach young and engaged individuals, this offering is a no brainer.

cheradenine

andyfox1979

I'd be willing to bet this was leaked by Facebook to give them leverage with big clients.

I sorta hope Facebook becomes the next Friendster already.

Here's my take on Facebook:
[misanthropytoday.wordpress.com]

andyfox1979

Figaro

dula

People still use this kind of language? I know I got the exact same bullshit card from Pseudo from back in '98. If fact, if I remember correctly, they said their viewship would grow organically to justify their insane rates. Except for viral promotions they used the term "brand building" and for friends, I believe the zeitgeist phrase was "eyeballs." And all you need to do to complete the comparison is to change Sponsored Group for "Channels".

This will all end in tears one day. Even Mark will be crying, but the drops will be that of alligators.

Otto-Reimer