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GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

forbes.com

171–180 of 267 posts

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#171
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the problem with GM's ads or FB's platform? Ie - What's Ford, Toyota or Hyundai doing with their ad spend on FB? We might be jumping to conclusions a little too quickly here.

Forbes just reported that Ford and Chrysler are keeping their ad spend on facebook and are very happy with the ads.

Ford just publicly made a statement approving of their results from Facebook ads:

https://twitter.com/Ford/statuses/202574566613200896

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#172
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interest is far from enough anymore and I think your example is an exception to prove the rule. Go watching a movie are such an ingrained part of life for many people and thus we are always "on the look" for a good movie to go watch. But try and do that with a car brand or any other non-commodity and intent suddently becomes the most important factor.

"Prove the rule" is a colloquialism that means "test the rule". The exception ends up disproving or clarifying the rule, not verifying it. It doesn't mean prove like passing that test.

Actually, "the exception that proves the rule" means that a recorded exception to a rule can be used as proof of the existence of an otherwise undocumented rule. It dates back to medieval legal terminology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#173
post #114

I've said this repeatedly: Facebook is a high-risk proposition, particularly as an investment (disclaimer: I work for Google). "Intent" as other commenters have noted is a big part of the story but it's not the only story. Search can broadly be broken up into at least two categories: 1. Navigational eg typing "b and h" into the browser; and 2. Informational eg "cheap flights to jamaica". I don't know what the make up…

that is why Orkut and Google+ have changed the world and have movies about them. There were social media sites before Facebook and so far they have found an effective formula, this could easily change.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#174
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interest is far from enough anymore and I think your example is an exception to prove the rule. Go watching a movie are such an ingrained part of life for many people and thus we are always "on the look" for a good movie to go watch. But try and do that with a car brand or any other non-commodity and intent suddently becomes the most important factor.

"Prove the rule" is a colloquialism that means "test the rule". The exception ends up disproving or clarifying the rule, not verifying it. It doesn't mean prove like passing that test.

[deleted]

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#175
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes If you think you could download people's entire photo collections in a "couple of minutes" then you underestimate the insane number of photos uploaded to Facebook every day.

no, you misunderstood or I haven't explained properly (mostly the latter). What I said is that the App would download all _your_ photos that you owe on your account. Given that it takes couple seconds max until I see a full photo from the moment I clicked it, it would take tens of minutes to download hundreds of photos: 5 sec per photo x 200 photos == 16 minutes of robot's work while you enjoy your drink. edit: so th…

Don't think so. Your hypothetical app saves all of my photos, but I suspect people spend far more time browsing other peoples' photos. Those I don't get by being the first to migrate to a Facebook competitor. That's where the powerful lock-in lies.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#176
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbes just reported that Ford and Chrysler are keeping their ad spend on facebook and are very happy with the ads.

what it means: "very happy"?. maybe they like losing money, are careless, or losing $10MM to them is still "being happy". Without conversion rates, or % of awareness arisen, its hard to say whether FB is valuable place to pay for ads.

Ford at least has the recent history of not making monumentally bad decisions that end in bankruptcy. The fact that they find value gives me more to chew on than the fact that GM decides it's wrong, which may say more about GM than the platform.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#177
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes If you think you could download people's entire photo collections in a "couple of minutes" then you underestimate the insane number of photos uploaded to Facebook every day.

no, you misunderstood or I haven't explained properly (mostly the latter). What I said is that the App would download all _your_ photos that you owe on your account. Given that it takes couple seconds max until I see a full photo from the moment I clicked it, it would take tens of minutes to download hundreds of photos: 5 sec per photo x 200 photos == 16 minutes of robot's work while you enjoy your drink. edit: so th…

You still lose the entire network of tags around each photo. The most valuable thing about Facebook photos over, say, Flickr photos, is knowing who is in them.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#179
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is nothing preventing Facebook from being the next Myspace when something newer, cooler and hipper comes along and the users move on." I would argue that things like the massive photo collections people have made provide a large level of lock-in. I also suspect that Timeline is the first play in a "all your history, here" move that would make moving to another service very difficult.

I don't see a problem here. Most of folks here, including myself, over the span of one weekend could write a downloadable version of a Visual Basic application with a built-in Internet Explorer Window where you login to your facebook and then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes, elegantly packet into zip, xml or whatever format you wish to h…

Or just use their built in data exporter, which while not instant, does include all photos and information that user posted. No need to build anything, really.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#180
post #160
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if Facebook ads DO work (at least for GM) I don't believe they would have pulled their campaign no matter what ulterior motives they may have. Sales are sales.

Unless they obtained a better deal with a competitor; a competitor that might have an interest in sabotaging the IPO.

That's pretty ridiculous. The marketing department of GM isn't worried about the best deal. It's great if they can save money, but how much could GM really be saving with, oh I don't know, let's just say, Google? Keep in mind they spent $10 million on Facebook. One tv ad during the Super Bowl is probably half that. If GM believed they would lose sales by ending Facebook ads, they wouldn't end them. Even if that were true, you aren't going to sabotage a projected $100 billion IPO with a $10 million account.

It would certainly be better for Facebook if this were a conspiracy, but I don't believe that's what's happening here.

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