Brand Watch: P&G Careful on Facebook, Optimistic on Applications

November 17th, 2008

This week at the Digital Non-Conference, a program put on by the Ad Club of Cincinnati, Ted McConnell, General Manager of Interactive Marketing and Innovation at Procter & Gamble shared his perspective on marketing on social media in general and Facebook in particular, AdAge reports. A couple of interesting quotes:

“What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend? … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

And:

McConnell cited Facebook applications as a potentially valuable vehicle for advertisers, one in which they can create an environment that’s favorable for their brands and consumers alike.

While reports from the Ad Club of Cincinnati may not sound interesting to some app developers off the bat, it’s important for more developers to understand the different perspectives of people investing ad dollars in the space, so that applications can collectively become a more viable channel for a greater variety of advertisers.

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Posted by Justin Smith

Filed in Advertising, Applications, Facebook, Marketing

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One Response to “Brand Watch: P&G Careful on Facebook, Optimistic on Applications”

Paul Says:
November 18th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I see his point but it appears to me that McConnell seems to think people should be able to chose when they get advertised to,and that’s ridiculous. Surely product placement would fall at the same immoral hurdle but in an age of file sharing, someone sometime, has to get paid. I don’t like seeing James Bond flashing off his Sony Viao to me but I know that in part it helped fund the film and give me a partially subsidised 2 hours of entertainment.

I also think Mr McConnell is generalising social media. I believe social media advertising is split into 2 parts. Passive advertising – when an ad is shown to a user alongside their social profile, and engaged advertising, when the user is interacting with a brand. For passive advertising - I can break up with my girlfriend by Facebook email or Gmail. One it would seem is immoral while the other is ok because of the platform used. In the case of engaged advertising, I believe as long as the user knows they’re interacting with the brand and the brand does not try and manipulate the conversation it’s having with the end user, then this is an entirely pure way of talking to a user and therefore a great form of advertising.

Either way, in our case it’s great news and I’d love to have a chat with Mr McConnell: “McConnell told the conference that he does not think P&G should continue to buy banner ads on Facebook, although he believes there is still value in branded Facebook applications.”

Adknowledge are a social media ad platform. In September we served 10 billion ads into social media applications across Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Bebo, Friendster and Orkut. Along with monetising apps we also offer brands the opportunity to “rent an app”

Here’s an example: http://apps.new.facebook.com/videotheater/Video.php?contentId=4 for more information pbowen@adknowledge.com