Commentary
Facebook Could Be Brand Marketer's Dream
- by Eldad Persky , May 4, 2011
Imagine the Super Bowl streamed on Facebook Live with many millions of users watching, liking and sharing ads and brands simultaneously. Doesn't that make TV advertising seem terribly limited?
True, Facebook isn't currently selling ad spots on Facebook Live. It takes a less traditional approach to rich media. For example, you won't see full-page takeovers or large Flash banners. Facebook Marketplace ads (the auction-based unobtrusive ads you often see stacked in the right hand rail) are not much more than plain image and text combos, not exactly what usually whets the appetites of top brand CMOs.
Indeed, the typical Marketplace advertiser on Facebook today is not a top brand, but rather a local retailer or a classic direct response peddler. A random test on my personal Facebook account brought up a local real-estate agent, no-pill muscle building and discounted teeth whitening.
Some of the first companies to develop buying tools on top of Facebook's ad API have been SEOs like Kenshoo and Efficient Frontier. However, when it comes to direct response search has been and still is king for "bottom of the proverbial sales funnel" conversions. No matter how big Facebook display gets, it isn't going to produce the same results as search because the user state of mind is completely different.
The explicit intent that drives a user to search (and see search ads) is missing from the typical user experience on Facebook.
What makes Facebook a natural environment for brand marketing even without Super Bowl ads is the unique opportunities it provides to achieve Reach and Impact across paid, owned and earned media, all within the Facebook universe. Let's look at reach through an example.
Starbucks has amassed almost 21 million fans on its Facebook page to date (owned). By advertising to friends of fans (paid) Starbucks can reach over 530 million unique users that are likely to respond positively to their message. Whenever they are successful in making a connection (e.g., Like) they earn social exposure on friends' news feeds (earned).
How do you acquire so many fans in the first place? By buying Like ads (ads directed at their Facebook page) among other ways (paid). All this adds up to massive and high quality reach.
As to brand impact, premium ads may include video and other rich features. Custom fan pages also provide the flexibility to create rich experiences. Companies like BuddyMedia, Vitrue, Socialdex and others help brands put in place effective ongoing communication plans on top of these custom fan pages and communities.
Marketplace ad units do not support rich media and are not likely to change anytime soon. However, impact may also be achieved in other ways. Marketplace ads which include mentions of friends who already Liked the brand have proven to lift brand recall 1.6X, message awareness 2X and purchase intent 4X based on a joint Facebook--Nielsen study from April 2010.
Recently released paid feature Sponsored Stories allows brands to ensure positive interactions by users' friends -- not only in their news feeds but also in the right-hand column. Companies like BLiNQ, AdParlor provide scalable tools to manage Marketplace ads that help make images and copy more effective to those using Facebook's micro-targeting capabilities. These and other tools provide ample opportunity for strong Impact in addition to massive reach.
Whether or not Facebook Live is going to give TV networks a run for their money and grow to offer a Super Bowl grade advertising opportunity, brand marketing on Facebook is a natural reality. The combination of massive reach and strong impact across paid, owned and earned media within one, highly measurable platform is unheard of. It promises to become an increasingly strategic part of any brand marketing mix.
Hello Eldad,
Insightful. Although limited in format and options, Facebook's ad buy is one of the few examples of online advertising that can accurately measure reach and response through authentic audience exposure.
As you stated, however, "no matter how big Facebook display gets, it isn't going to produce the same results as search because the user state of mind is completely different."
I've seen reports on Facebook conversions that blow search conversions out of the water. It makes sense, since the state of mind when one is social shopping is one of acceptance, whereas during search shopping, the state of mind is one of comparative investigation. In the social scene, we want to "like" things. In the search scene, we want to eliminate less desirable competitors.