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General Motors: "Facebook Ads Aren't Worth It"
Fluffeh writes "General Motors spends around $40 million per year on maintaining a Facebook profile and around a quarter of that goes into paid advertising. However, in a statement, they just announced that 'it's simply not working.' That's a bit of bad news just prior to the Facebook IPO — and while Daniel Knapp tries to sweeten the news, he probably makes it even more bitter by commenting 'Advertising on Facebook has long been funded by marketing budgets reserved for trying new things. But as online advertising investments in general are surging and starting to cannibalize spend on legacy media, advertisers are rightfully asking whether the money spend is justified because it has reached significant sums now.'"
Marketer 1: "hey, we don't have enough budget to advertise on Facebook"
Marketer 2: "how do we reach the facebook crowd without spending money?"
"Marketer 1: I know! Let's do a press release that says we can't afford advertising on Facebook, but spin it as us not wanting to advertise on facebook"
Marketer 3: "that's a great idea! let's announce it just days before facebook's public IPO for maximum impact!"
moox. for a new generation.
For $40 million it would have been better to give away cars worth that much. Gets them on the street for people to see, gets folks talking about GM giving away cars. I bet giving away cars would generate some buzz on facebook without all the extra work and cost.
More precisely:
I've found that marketing rarely has ever been able to prove that the money they spend actually generates returns that exceed the oney spent.
Ironically the except IS superbowl ads.
" Earlier research by some of the same scholars also found that films advertised during the Super Bowl see as much as a 40 percent boost at the box office."
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/02/i_paid_4_million_for_this_.html
Of course, their are other factors as well. If I buy an ad, that mean it's harder for my competitor t buy an ad, pop culture benefits, etc:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/03/news/companies/super_bowl_ads/index.htm
But is does seem superbowl ads are worth it in many cases.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The problem is that Facebook is optimized for narcissistic _self_-promotion through _telling_ your echo chamber how great you are, not for _showing_ others your status even through the usual consumption displays that are required to promote _others_.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody, buys pointless shit like narcissistic people do. They are the ones who post up the most personal information about every last thing. They are the ones who just have to make sure everybody sees what location they're "logged into" at the moment. So in that regard, Facebook is a Utopia for advertisement.
The problem as I see it, is how the ads are actually displayed. I honestly hardly notice them at all, myself, and even if they were interesting and noticeable there's no way in hell that I trust clicking on it. Clicking ads in my mind is like saying "Why yes, I think I will take some Malware for my computer, now that you mention it. Thanks! Boy that really fucked my plan up. Got any more?"
Contrast that to something like Youtube, where they get annoying, but not only do you have to do nothing, you also aren't actively jumping through random, unknown web sites.
If FB was smart, they'd require advertisers to have a FB group, and eliminate outside linking entirely.... ads would link to the FB page of the ad purchaser. And here's where they throw in the bait- add the long-coveted 'Dislike' button on the ad pages and company groups. Streisand Effect would make more eyes hit those ads than anything in history... and I'm not exaggerating.