Something else that Facebook announced this morning: that their ads are just like TV ads. Facebook is now trying to make the argument that their ads are just like TV ads, in that consumers see your message and then think of your product when they go to the store.
This argument seems like a real stretch. When a commercial airs on TV, it is the only message appearing to the consumer and it takes up the whole screen so that it can't be missed. When an ad appears on a Facebook it appears in a small part of the screen, where it is easily ignored or missed while the user focuses on messages from their friends. Further, a TV ad runs for 30 seconds, whereas most people don't even spend 30 seconds on the same web page let alone 30 seconds reading a digital ad. Plus a major point of digital advertising is that you can actually measure the impact of your message, which Facebook is now trying to say isn't that important. TV advertising obviously has it's drawbacks but I think it is a pretty poor comparison for Facebook.
This article also mentions that Facebook is now offering to reallocate high frequency impressions to Facebook users seeing too few impressions. This was already talked about in a previous post, but I think this is a step in the right direction for Facebook (as opposed to comparing their ads to TV ads). Cutting through the clutter can be really difficult for digital advertisers, so being able to target people that are not inundated with ads could be a really powerful tool.
Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-our-ads-are-just-tv-144118
Good post, Steven.
ReplyDeleteLet’s face it: they had to do SOMETHING to save face(book). With revenue for ads stagnant and Zynga failing to deliver a new string of blockbusters, the FB folks knew that action was needed to signal to Madison Avenue that Facebook is and will forever be a relevant tool to spend gobs of ad money on. What better way to do that than to begin a campaign to take the luster off “clicks” as the metric of choice.
Sure, there is logic in saying that the more times a person sees X, the more likely he or she is to remember X. Yes, repetition is an effective targeting technique (kudos to Facebook so far). But, and I would love to know from others how they feel on this point, I basically ignore ads on Facebook pages. So Facebook would have to clock me over the head with a flounder to get me to pay attention to a featured brand. But the beauty of this argument is, brands will have to spend a lot more to make the requisite impact on a user and that’s exactly what the ‘Book is counting on.
Getting marketers to break their click focus is a tall order. And let’s not even mention those wicked privacy concerns always flying around Facebook as they gather this data.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSorry for the deleted comments - I guess that's why we have a "Preview" button. This is what I was TRYING to say:
ReplyDeleteI'm actually going to agree with Facebook here; at least on a certain part of their argument. I do think that advertising on Facebook much more closely resembles TV advertising than, for example, search advertising.
People browsing Facebook don't click on ads - that's a known fact at this point. They just aren't in the right state of mind. When someone performs a Google search, he (or she) is looking for something. That's the very nature of a search, and as such there is a significant likelihood that he will click on something which appears to match that search. When browsing Facebook, he is in a much more passive state - much like when watching television. Display ads, while much more difficult to assign value to than ads designed to induce clicks, seem to me to be the only obvious way to advertise on Facebook. So, in that respect, I do think that Facebook ads are like television, or maybe even print, advertisements.
It's easy to dump on display ads as ineffective, especially in the face of modern search advertising. But remember that display advertising has been an important component of marketing for many many years before the internet even existed. I do think that Facebook will need to tweak their design a bit to make their ads more difficult to ignore (without being obnoxious) - but I also think that overall this is the right way for them to think about their ad program going forward.