How many reading this would put much trust in an article
about McDonald’s coffee compared to Starbucks coffee… if Burger King wrote it?
Most every morning I grab a Wall Street Journal, a cup of
coffee and a bagel to catch up on what’s all happening out there among peers
and colleagues.
In this morning’s WSJ Marketplace, there is a front page
article titled, “The Big Doubt Over Facebook.”
There is also a set of illustrations of the Facebook
thumbs-up icon, the American Idol logo, a drawing of People magazine and the
New York Times and Yahoo! logos.
Even before reading the article, I made a bet with the guy
sitting at the table next to me what the article would say…
(1) It would compare advertising on Facebook with
alternative advertising options in conventional media… even with a comparative
skew to print publications
(2) It would put an onus on Facebook to prove that
advertising on it leads to sales… but place no comparative onus on conventional
media
(3) It would feature ad agency commentary on the
questionable character of Facebook advertising
Sure enough, I won the bet.
Early in the article, Michael Sprague, CMO of Kia Motors
North America is quoted as saying, “if a consumer sees my ad (on Facebook) does
that ultimately lead to a new vehicle sale?”
WSJ then immediately follows the quote with…
“The concerns from Kia and other advertisers underscore the
difficulties of measuring results of nascent-forms of social-media
advertising.”
Ahhhh… Has the WSJ, other print publications and broadcast
media players been able to produce result-producing measurement standards in
what is now their post-nascent 40 years plus of being around?
The pictures adjacent to the article compare spending $1
million in generating 125 million impressions on Facebook with two, 30-second
ads on American Idol, 6.5 full-page color ads in People magazine and 10
full-page color ads in the New York Times.
Course the article says nothing about the ability to post
those 125 million impressions with screeners relative to very direct related
behavior sets of the Facebook members.
Perhaps the part of the article that I chuckled over the
most was the set of commentary by “chief executives” from the hallowed halls of
P&G, Unilever and WPP (“the world’s largest ad company”)… all of which
“question the value of their investments” on Facebook.
Wow… I am sure that those are three true experts of the
entrepreneurial wave of market inspiration (give me a break!)
Thanks to overseas markets, Unilever has been able to offset
stale sales in the U.S. and the WSJ reported earlier this week that P&G is
facing sales below projections for the first time this year.
And perhaps, WPP can join up with the comparative analogy of
the WSJ and Burger King… an ad agency group offering critique of a key player
that has had pronounced impact on their declining client-sales.
My response can also be boiled down in simple statements…
(1) Show me another media vehicle that reaches 900 million
readers-viewers
(2) Show me another media vehicle that provides advertisers
with the ability to target their message against real-time behaviors relative
to the advertisers product or service
(3) Show me another media vehicle that qualifies “reach” and
“impressions” delivery against very specific audience dynamics… far more
specific than gender and age
The title of the article perhaps says it all: “The Big Doubt
Over Facebook” – maybe that doubt is truly focused more around whether Facebook
will join up with the established “good ole boys” clan or start-up a rival
gang!
The last perspective I will leave with is that in the same
issue of the WSJ there is a full-page color ad for Blackberry that talks in
tech talk about something the Blackberry does that “no one else can claim.”
Blackberry has a brand tagline: “BE BOLD.”
Adjacent to the article about Facebook is a second article
titled, “RIM Offers Peek At Its Next Phone” in which the first sentence states
“the company is counting on the phone to stop the company’s slide” and that the
event “drew a mostly tepid response that heightened concerns about whether the
company’s products can compete with the iPhone.”
Ahhhh… you see any comparison in these two stories?
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