In my opinion Google improved advertising ROI because its ads appear when users are in the buying mood.
Most of us know that traditional advertising no longer works. Buying ads to generate awareness, make consumers spend, to make profit and buy more ads doesn´t work anymore. Consumers are looking for very specific stuff, and it´s up to advertisers to catch them when they´re on the hunt, send them to their page and deliver.
People don´t want to be taken to places they don´t want to go. They don´t want to lose time with non-sense and don´t want to be interrupted.
Until Google (and Yahoo and MSN..) came up with ads showing on search results pages, advertisers in the net were doing just about that. They were executing traditional advertising instruments online. There was direct mail (spam), billboards and posters (banners and pop-ups)…all of which are unwanted, annoying garbage you´re not willing to pay attention to.
I still remember when I used to live in Sao Paulo and the streets were filled with huge billboards, everywhere you looked. It was horrible and it hugely contributed to the city´s visual contamination. Never again.
(Sao Paulo)
Facebook is a buzz.
I am still trying to figure it out why is facebook (or any social network in a broader sense) receiving so much attention and advertisers seem to be seeing a gold mine there. Maybe that´s because facebook is able to segment like no one (unique in the web). Or because it allows you to do “social advertising” (show ads to people and their friends)? or maybe just because everyone uses it (yesterday 13,5% of global users visited facebook, according to alexa.com)? hmmm, because it´s inexpensive? Probably all of them.
But does it mean it works?
I doubt.
Because in the end it´s just traditional advertising in a sense that it´s used to chase and yell at people. Aesthetically wise Facebook might not be like the streets of Sao Paulo, but still it is full of unwanted impressions people might pay little attention to. Besides, who wants to be friends with a brand? What does it add to the user? Will it be worth talking about it and waste your friend´s time?
Mr. Goldstein of SocialMedia Networks on NY Times: “Advertisers distract users; users ignore advertisers; advertisers distract better; users ignore better.”
The real power of internet is that it enables ideas to spread quickly, by themselves and at very low costs. My guess is that marketeers, organizations, people, enterpreneurs need to come up with great ideas that will do just that. Unless communcation strategies are put in place in Facebook in order achieve that goal, sticking to more conventional advertising might be a waste of potencial the social platform has to offer.
