NYT has digital advertising all wrong
In case you missed it, The New York Times ran a piece in yesterday’s paper about the challenges advertisers face in trying to bend social networking sites like Facebook to their will.
Some of it was informative; like the part about how Facebook defines ‘active’ users as those who’ve logged on in the past 30 days, but counts all members as active when calculating the total number of fans on a sponsors’ pages. And some of it was downright comical; like when Ted McConnell, P&G’s manager of interactive marketing and innovation is quoted as saying “I really don’t want to buy any more banners on Facebook,” despite the company’s “strong relationship with Facebook,” according to a spokeswoman.
Good advertising isn’t about intrusiveness or ’spending ungodly sums’…but creativity.
But for me, the most troubling aspect of the article was the cynical—and limited—view of what’s possible in the interactive advertising space. We’re told that without endless investment, social media campaigns sputter out. In the words of SNL’s Seth Meyer and Amy Poehler, Really? Show me any marketing effort that doesn’t require sustained investment, and I’ll show you a perpetual motion machine. It doesn’t exist.
The piece concludes by pointing out that there are only two options for advertisers on Facebook: Be more intrusive, or create entertaining commercials that provide ‘Super Bowl-sized’ entertainment.
Um, no.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of Randall Stross, and find his books to be incredibly well researched and written. But this time he’s just off the mark.
The whole point of digital advertising is to involve; to leverage the power of the Web to its full potential; to do stuff in the interactive space that you just can’t do elsewhere. As an example, check out this ad for Coke Zero which, besides being engaging is also highly social in nature. There’s no reason tools like this can’t be used on Facebook and other social media outlets to great effect. (And, No, I have no affiliation with Coke or any of its agency partners.)
The point is, good advertising—regardless of the media in or on which it runs—isn’t about intrusiveness or ’spending ungodly sums’ (Stross’ term).
It’s about creativity, plain and simple.
How do you see it?
