Facebook: Ads Still Interrupt, Even if they Come with a Photo of My Sister

I was reading Danny Sullivan's article "Forget Facebook. Search ads are the real revolution" and couldn't get over the point that advertising, even in it's most targeted form, is an interruption.

Just in case you haven't heard, Facebook has been receiving some criticism over their new advertising platform. The digital content blog has a good 3 step description of the new program. In looking this over, there are a lot of opportunities for brands to get involved, but the one that is intriguing is the integration of your friend's referrals.  Saul Hansell from the NYTimes puts it this way:

"...Facebook may be able to append the implicit endorsement of friends to ads on this network. Imagine checking out the forecast on Weather.com, and you see a banner with a picture of your buddy Joe, saying Joe just bought a Canon digital camera from Amazon.com next to an ad for the latest Canon model. If someone else went to the same site, they might see an ad featuring a product recently endorsed by one of his or her friends."

Please don't get me started on condoms or tampons.

There are all kinds of implications for marketers here, but the core issue here is that, as ultra-targeted as this is, it's still advertising. It still interrupts. It's still packaged around the content that you are trying to consume.

Should marketers be salivating over this opportunity?  Possibly. Danny Sullivan puts it well in that "The trusted referral is indeed a holy grail, and Facebook will offer a new way to build word-of-mouth." Facebook has said that Coca-Cola, the New York Times, CondeNet and STA Travel are already on board, along with 40 other brands. For those marketers that have million dollar budgets, this is almost a no-brainer. I'd at least test it (almost).

For the rest of us with normal marketing budgets that need to make a significant impact on targeted buyers, try creating your own content...then take that content and leverage the heck out of social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg and so on. Want proof that it works? Check out this WSJ article on five companies that created their own video offerings with incredible results.

So, would seeing a photo of my sister next to Purina dog chow be cool on Facebook? Sure! Better yet, Purina created PetCentric, where I can get great content about my dog and interact with other dog lovers.

You can always do both...but if I had the choice, I choose to BE the content.

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