Can an Orange Puppet Point the Way to Social Media Advertising?

A couple of interesting articles appeared on November 2, 2011 in both eMarketer and The Wall Street Journal regarding ad spending - with particular focus on Facebook.  It adds up in the form of fundamental questions facing marketers.

• How much of the ad budget should I shift to social media (SM)?
• Which SM sites fit our markets, if any?
• How can I tell if I’m getting bang for the buck?
• What happens if I move too quickly, or not quickly enough?
• Is there a way to “game” the system?

There are no easy answers.  But there is some intriguing data - and one clever use of Facebook.

 

 

The Shift to Social Media Ad Spend

By 2013 U.S. spend on social media is forecast to reach almost $5B (close to $10B globally).  That figure represents only an estimated 8.2% of all spend on online advertising.

 

But consider the estimates of U.S. advertising spend below.  Though forecasting is an inexact science, assuming these estimates are valid, though, online spend is expected to represent almost 25% of U.S. advertising within 3 years, with social media accounting for 8.2% of all online ad spending - over 2% of ad spend on all media.

 

Media	Share of 2011 Ad Spend	5-year CAGR
All media	100%	3.8%
Online	19%	14%
Social media	2%	35%

 

The Safe Bet is Facebook

Tallying $7 our of every $10 of social media ad spend, if marketers are going to play the odds - especially those for whom SM advertising is a grand experiment - Facebook is the handicapper’s choice (read the full eMarketer article here).

 

 

But Wily Firms Make Their FB Bets Prudently

As reported in the WSJ, comScore released data for 50 U.S. Advertisers in September, showing both overall impressions they received from the Internet, and the proportion of those received from Facebook - the familiar “Like” button.

 

The accompanying interactive graphic can be viewed here.

 

The article goes on to report how some savvy advertisers are finding novel ways to use Facebook to garner impressions, but without paying for FB ads (read the full WSJ article here).

 

Fox pure creativity and risk-taking, Ford goes to the head of the class with its Ford Focus ad featuring its new spokesperson Doug, an orange-colored puppet.  For close to $0 spent on Facebook advertising, Doug managed to pull more than 43,000 “Likes”.  Judge for yourself.