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Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

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Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#11

Post by jmduke »

Pasanpr wrote: post #7
jmduke wrote: post #5

I understand the author's issues with the spots -- and agree with them -- but he seems to demonstrate a poor understanding of what the goal of an advertisement for a free Android overlay targeted mainly towards 18-35 yr olds should be. The goals of such an advertisement are to be loud and to promote immediate curiosity, in my opinion.

The author, Josh Elman, has worked at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and is now a principal at Greylock Partners with an investment focus on advertising and social (among other things). I'd say he definitely understands the advertising goals of a social media company.

I'm not trying to be glib, but he really doesn't demonstrate it in the article. His thesis is:

Facebook is celebrating all the wrong things. It advocates tuning out the people around you to see what else is happening that must be more interesting elsewhere. It foments FOMO.

Which sounds incredibly effective with the aforementioned target audience.

You could make the argument that he's talking less about the ads being ineffective and talking more about the ads being deplorable, which is fair -- but why does that matter? I can't remember Apple deployed a marketing strategy without the world 'magic', but I still think they're a great company.

Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#12

Post by fpgeek »

jmduke wrote: post #5

I understand the author's issues with the spots -- and agree with them -- but he seems to demonstrate a poor understanding of what the goal of an advertisement for a free Android overlay targeted mainly towards 18-35 yr olds should be. The goals of such an advertisement are to be loud and to promote immediate curiosity, in my opinion.

Accomplishing the short-term goal while creating or reinforcing long-term positioning and/or framing issues (e.g. Facebook as a tool for tuning out) isn't actually a win.

Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#13

Post by chatmasta »

The past decade has wrought a massive shift in the communication paradigm of humans. The context map of communication has completely changed. Over the next decade, we will begin to see the both the positive and negative effects of our collective shift in social perspective.

Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#14

Post by bonzoesc »

nikster wrote: post #4

Advertising Facebook as the perfect tool for the completely unconscious is a most unfortunate choice. I have only seen the airplane ad and while I was watching it I was wondering if they are being ironic. The hero of the ad so to speak is this guy who thinks everything around him is oh so boring so he escapes to the colorful fantasy world provided by his facebook phone. I was waiting for the punch line only it never…

Have you ever boarded an airplane before? For me it's about two minutes of waiting behind people putting up bags, 30 seconds of stowing bags and sitting down, and then fifteen minutes of going through all my chats and social sites hoping somebody has said something interesting since they called my boarding group.

Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#16

Post by bgruber »

they're almost the exact opposite of the ad I would want to see: for example, the family is having dinner, everybody is together and talking to each other, and at the end is the reveal that the oldest kid is actually alone in his dorm room, but he feels close to home because, well, facebook home.

on the other hand, i guess most people do in fact view their boss as a boring blowhard so it's more attractive to advertise that your phone can help you ignore him than it is to advertise that it can help you listen. but aren't ads supposed to be aspirational?

Re: Facebook Home ads show Facebook at its worst

#17

Post by richardjordan »

My first reaction on seeing the goat ad was negative. Why they chose to advertise this as an antisocial product which helps you disengage from ACTUAL social activity escaped me.

I once wrote a blog boat decrying the attitude of many of my European friends and family (who I see and keep up with on Facebook of course) for their attitude summed up on the phrase "I don't live to work, I work to live" ...while this sounds superficially appealing most folks saying it use it as a justification for letting life pass them by, taking Jo responsibility for themselves, making no effort in their job and then blowing their paycheck on booze at the weekend.

Facebook Home as portrayed in these ads appears to be for the folks zombieing their way through life in this way. The artifice if social networking replacing the actual social. It saddens me. Sharing "experiences" is nowhere near as good as actually having experiences, being present fully in the moment, in the company of others similarly engaged.

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