• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, May 2, 2018

This past weekend, during the NBA playoffs on TNT, I watched something that caught me off-guard.  It was Facebook’s “Here Together” ad — by and about Facebook — and it was one of the most genuine and articulate ads I have ever seen from a web-based company.  

Regardless of your opinions of Facebook, you had to be impressed with what they were saying in that campaign, which began “We came here for the friends,” discussed problems of “spam, clickbait, fake news and data misuse,” and then promised: “Facebook will do more to keep you safe and protect your privacy — so we can all get back to what made Facebook good in the first place. Friends.”

If you unpack the strategy, it’s not a surprising one.  At its core Facebook is intended to be a platform that connects people, and there is true emotional attachment to what it does.

I live 3,000 miles from the family I grew up with — and as a busy parent, it’s the primary way I can keep up-to-speed with what is going on with all of my family members. It’s the same situation with my friends from college, and basically anyone whom I don’t see daily through work or weekly through our local school-oriented community.

Facebook is a tool that enables a broad, global network to become connected and stay in touch.  Along the way, the company figured out how to monetize those connections and created billions of dollars in revenue.  I wish I’d come up with the idea, to be honest!

As Facebook grew, it stepped in “piles” of its own making.  Privacy has always been at the core of its problems.  But these days, no matter what anyone says publicly, privacy is given away freely. There’s a whole generation of people who put all their private details on display online for anyone to see in exchange for convenience, value or the increased perception of self-worth. The fair-value exchange is in the eyes of the beholder, and billions of people see that value as fair.  

This recent mis-step by Facebook was a big one, but it’s not surprising to anyone who has been in the ad industry for any period of time.   

What is impressive to me is how Facebook has addressed this issue head-on, and is now running a campaign that essentially apologizes for the error and attempts to get people to come back and remember why they liked Facebook in the first place.  

Facebook and Google are the backbone of the digital media industry. For this category to grow, there has to be a level of consumer trust in these two companies.  The tactics these companies use to deliver targeted messages are no different at their core than the loyalty program for your grocery store or credit card company.  They all use your information to create personalized offerings.  They also all share that information with other corporate partners who are looking to deliver personalized messages. 

This is not a new practice, but the accuracy and the scale digital has offered in the last five to six years are unmatched previously. But there has to be consumer trust in these tactics as indexing to the concerns of consumers vs. corporations.

I am hopeful about where things are headed, but I am also quite happy to see these companies finally taking consumer privacy seriously.  There’s a lot of personal information out there — and certainly a lot of people who are looking to take advantage of consumers — but Facebook and Google are the two companies who can set the precedent for consumer understanding of the exchange of value to be had.

Kudos to Facebook for embracing its mistakes and trying to make amends.