That's right, Trevor Kaufman, the CEO of WPP digital flagship Schematic, doesn't think "the social network" is a very effective ad medium for a couple of reasons. One is that consumers don't really
want advertising and brand messages when they are networking socially. And two, because the Facebook creators didn't create it that way.
"Facebook was not designed to be a particularly
effective advertising medium," Kaufman said during MEDIA's Future of Media Forum in New York this morning. "I don't think advertising was in Mark Zuckerberg's head when they made that up, and we have
to live with that."
Evan Williams, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, sort of acknowledged that about the social medium he spawned, but he implied that marketers are discovering other ways of
using it to communicate that aren't necessarily advertising -- as we know it.
"Twitter wasn't designed as an advertising medium," he acknowledged, adding that "from the beginning" there
nonetheless "have been companies there that feel it is a very useful way to get their message out there."