Media Week

Justin, the reason advertising agencies have been slow to engage with social networking sites is just that! Banners are not the best way forward (i personally have stopped noticing them), the best way is integration and no one has worked out how to do this on social networking sites! However, before we quickly blame the advertising agencies (as usual) someone else in my opinion is to blame! Having been in touch with people who work for Facebook during the past couple of years, they very much admit they're a technology company and know no better, in my opinion as a media owner it is your responsibility to make people aware of interesting opportunities. Facebook did this for about a couple of months however the introduction of third party applications diminished the exclusivity of many of their offerings - e.g. branded gifts. Social networks and brands have been successful in the past; especially those founded on a similar interest. Car forums are a fine example of social networks who have coexisted with brands in harmony for many years. In these cases car companies and companies dealing with cars have become part of the community offering discounts and advice. A similar comparison on facebook is that of the Victoria's Secrete Sponsored Group, but before you quickly go and do this for your own brand, you must understand they got it right for many reasons such as target audience and because people (especially girls) want to be associated with a brand like it. People will not want to be associated with your brand on a social network site if you are a washing up liquid. A profile is a persons own advertising space - think cool! What bugs me most is recent articles in the media concerned with advertisers pulling out of social networks like facebook; a banner on the side of the page i can assure you is not going to associate you with a BNP group - you'll have to be a lot more creative to be associated with a group i can assure you! Working in advertising myself - be it for not very long we're going through a very interesting time and some things work some things don't - we can only try and accept that in this fast driven technological environment there are gambles to be made - but they'll only go your way if you try! Otherwise you'll have to read about someone elses success on websites like this!

Typo on Victoria's Secret! Sorry!

Hi Musa, I think what you have said is very interesting. With the debate about advertisers and social media, I am beginning to feel a bit as if many advertisers are very out of touch with social media. Unless ad agencies and marketeers immerse themselves more in these worlds they are not going to be able to organise effective advertising. What do you think about Sky News in my piece above?