That's the analogy Director of Global Creative Solutions Marc D'Arcy just struck during GroupM's "What's Next" conference in New York this morning.
D'Arcy, who was a "copywriter from New
Zealand" before joining Facebook, said he used to "use it like salt"
"I treated Facebook like a condiment," he added, noting, "I sprinkled it on everything."
Apparently, that's not the
right way to utilize Facebook, he said upon further reflection, asking, "How are we going to create experiences that are relevant, that are useful, that are engaging."
He said those three
adjectives (as opposed to nouns and verbs) -- relevant, useful and engaging -- are his Big 3 when it comes to best Facebook practices. Actually, when you think about it, those are pretty good things
to practice with anything.
At the end of D'Arcy's presentation, he bravely took some questions from the GroupM attendees, and they fired some tough ones, including a query about what D'Arcy
thought the "next Facebook" might be, you know, the next emerging digital media platform that would shake their business model up. He more or less hummed and hawed, shuffling his feet in response, and
demonstrating excellent political spin skills, by deflecting the question and giving it an unrelated answer.
Noting that he used to work at Time Warner, D'Arcy said the team at HBO was always
"nervous" about the next big thing. "Anyone who is really great at doing something is always worried about who's in a garage." D'Arcy acknowledged. Or maybe even on a college campus.