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Facebook/BNP and blind advertising   

Interesting to read about Vodafone and First Direct pulling adsfrom Facebook after they appeared next to a web page for the BNP. the ads were booked blink by OMD. Could this lead to a review of blind advertising on social media and blogs? I think there has to be much more thought on how you advertise on social media and blogs. It might be worth consulting with users of social media to find out how the brand could best support the site. There are so many risks to just simply slapping an ad on a blog or a social media site. Advertorials written by bloggers in house style on niche relevant blogs which are clearly credited as sponsored posts can work as can competitions. But the way forward probably has to be involving social media users more in the creation of campaigns.

 

Published Aug 03 2007, 09:21 AM by Justin Hunt
 

All Comments

Mark Bridge
  August 3, 2007
I think it's surprising that this type of incongruity hasn't been noticed before - and it also shows surprising naievete by OMD, Vodafone et al. "We'll advertise on t'internet". As I write, Hoeseasons are advertising on an Anti-BNP site and Barclaycard are sponsoring the Facebook search results for "BNP". Incidentally, I appear to be funded by Kodak. Must write something nice about photography...
M BERTOZZI
  August 3, 2007
I was disturbed to see the other day a tramp taking drugs under a 48 sheet for a leading airline. Surely there is some way of removing these undesirables from near reputable advertising?
Jon Clarke
  August 3, 2007
Can you back your comment up with proof that OMD booked this space as Blind Space? It was probably run of network and with such sites and networks it is nigh on impossible for a buyer, sales or traffic person to stop this happening when new groups/sub-sites can be created continuously so quicky by members. The delivery is not OMD's fault nor Facebook's. They like every other media planner/buyer and media owner work with the tools and knowledge they have and these anomalies will continue to happen. A chance to learn, yes. To call into question OMD's buying, no. I neither work for OMD or have dealings with them, but get annoyed when words are written on high profile sites that are not backed up with evidence or a corroborative source.
James Brown
  August 3, 2007
when oh when will facebook get it's act together re its advertising network. Here's the information it could pull from my profile: age, gender, interests, location, political views, relationship status, fav music/books/films, education and job. Surely this is ripe for some seriously advanced targeted ads? For example, I don't want to get ads from University of Liverpool online undergraduate prospectus.. because i already have an undergrad degree. surely this isn't that hard to implement? it would make a big difference.
Andrew McCormick
  August 3, 2007
Everyone in digital knows that advertising on social media sites carries a risk. Of course ads will appear against objectionable content. Does it matter? That's the question. If the industry decides it does then almost every company must review its ad strategy as I bet a huge percentage of brands that advertise online appear against objectionable content.
Justin Hunt
  August 3, 2007
Hi Jon, Regarding the blind booking, see the article in today's FT page 7 about the booking. By the way, I would like to make it clear that I think OMD is an excellent agency and they do some very progressive work. Besides this kind of thing could happen to any agency. I think it's a question of how do agencies deal with these sorts of issues going forward?
Alex Donohue
  August 3, 2007
"The delivery is not OMD's fault nor Facebook's" - Jon I question this statement, particularly with regard to the latter. I don't think for a moment that Facebook (or OMD) intentionally put Vodafone ads on the BNP's Facebook entry, but there must be some form of culpability as to what's happening on their site. They are after all making millions from brands booking ad space...
Will Callaghan
  August 3, 2007
As I said on the news article, it's down to FB's mod policy. Advertisers should read it before they book.
Nikki Sandison
  August 6, 2007
I agree Andrew, lots of ads must appear next to objectionable content and personally I wouldn't then think the advertiser was supporting that content. Unless an advertiser is actually sponsoring it I wouldn't connect them. Maybe that's just me.
Darren Davidson
  August 7, 2007
This isn't a new issue. The problem has been flagged up by the industry's titles at various times over the last 4 yrs and incidents similar to the Facebook/BNP situation have happened before and attracted press coverage. Advertisers might claim to be surprised but they shouldn't be. As increasing amounts of money are spent online the problem will continue to surface as long as the prevalence of chain buying -- where ad networks buy inventory from each other -- continues in its current state. It would be good to see the industry trade bodies making a stand on the issue. They seem to be conspicuous by their absence at the moment.
Andrew McCormick
  August 7, 2007
The IAB is investigating and IASH has employed ABC Electronic to audit all of its members. The IPA, for the first time, is being forced to look at what ad networks are up to and will conduct spot checks of ad networks. But, specifically on the Facebook issue: you're right Darren - not a peep. They'll have to come to the table at some point. I think they have to realise that this type of advertising is a weak spot for the industry and action needs to be taken to clean it up.
Josh Bailey
  September 9, 2008

Doesn't the potentially shocked consumer have to be searching for BNP sites and such like in order to make the offending comparison? Most of the debate seems to be around potential negative PR rather than actual damage to Facebook advertised brands...

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