Two car companies advertised in the same media environment during the same period of time. Advertising with Facebook? Ford says "Yes" ; General Motors says "No". Why? We have to go from stating to explaining. Obviously, GM made mistakes when using Facebook (in July 2012, the CMO win charge at that time, resigned!). Where are the mistakes? In strategy, creative work, planning, buying, timing, analytics? Who knows? GM should.
Facebook is not that simple. Targeting can be very subtle and precise. There are many kinds of advertising products (sponsored stories, display, brand pages, apps, etc.) that should be mixed, integrated and optimized. Like in no other advertising outlet.
When it comes to using television or magazines, marketing people rely on full history of cases, analytics, benchmarks, textbooks, research. They count on the experience of media agencies.
On the other hand, we have not yet accumulated the same capital of experience with Facebook (and other social media). We face a new learning curve: we will have to experiment, test, grasp new metrics. Learn by doing. For instance, GRP is a concept shared by all media specialists ; on the contrary, "engagement", "like", "friend" or "influence" are new concepts, not easy to deal with.
When it comes to using television or magazines, marketing people rely on full history of cases, analytics, benchmarks, textbooks, research. They count on the experience of media agencies.
On the other hand, we have not yet accumulated the same capital of experience with Facebook (and other social media). We face a new learning curve: we will have to experiment, test, grasp new metrics. Learn by doing. For instance, GRP is a concept shared by all media specialists ; on the contrary, "engagement", "like", "friend" or "influence" are new concepts, not easy to deal with.
Xerox, for instance, has allocated a budget to learning through experimenting and monitoring (trial and error). Meanwhile, Nutella (Ferrero) used MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) to understand and compare. They proved that, given their objectives, Facebook is more effective than TV (in Germany, for CPG ; cf. "Nutella sagt: Facebook performt besser als TV-Werbung"). We could also mention Walmart, which put all its American stores on Facebook, in 2011, with a personalized app (Walmart, média total du jour le plus long).
Matt Vandyke, Ford’s director of marketing communications, clearly summarizes the situation: “You won’t make the right choices if you view Facebook as an advertising network. You can’t just pick up advertising that would run somewhere else and put it on Facebook as an ad banner.” (in Forbes (May 15, 2012).
Facebook is still young, it is different from traditional media. The differences have been largely underestimated. Is Facebook only a media? Probably not. Mark Zuckerberg prefers to talk about "services".
Matt Vandyke, Ford’s director of marketing communications, clearly summarizes the situation: “You won’t make the right choices if you view Facebook as an advertising network. You can’t just pick up advertising that would run somewhere else and put it on Facebook as an ad banner.” (in Forbes (May 15, 2012).
Facebook is still young, it is different from traditional media. The differences have been largely underestimated. Is Facebook only a media? Probably not. Mark Zuckerberg prefers to talk about "services".
N.B. A recent survey by Greenlight, mentioned in the press, states that "44% of respondents never click on advertisesments or sponsored listings in Facebook" (in fact, it is only 38% since we understand that people who do not use Facebook do not click on ads!).
Total number of people surveyed is 500 for the entire world (among them 435 use Facebook): probably 109 persons in the USA! 13 persons for Asia...
CPG : Consumer Packaged Goods
MMM : Marketing Mix Modeling (Market mix modeling is used to determine the contribution to sales of media used in an advertising campaign. Multivariate regressions).
.
Total number of people surveyed is 500 for the entire world (among them 435 use Facebook): probably 109 persons in the USA! 13 persons for Asia...
CPG : Consumer Packaged Goods
MMM : Marketing Mix Modeling (Market mix modeling is used to determine the contribution to sales of media used in an advertising campaign. Multivariate regressions).
.
