Who Dat? Not Pepsi
Maybe you were one of the 100 million who watched the underdog New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl, but here’s something you didn’t see: an ad from Pepsi, noticeably absent among Super Bowl advertisers for the first time in 23 years. Ironically, unlike Google, the soft drink giant decided to bow out of the big game and put $20 million into digital media instead, relying on its own website and Facebook to tout its brand. Go to Pepsi.com and you’ll see just how digitally sophisticated Pepsi has become.
Don’t underestimate the importance of Pepsi’s promotional strategy. It is representative of what other advertisers are considering this year. Previously, I reported that Procter & Gamble is ramping up its Facebook presence.
It has taken the big guys a while to catch on to social media, but it looks like the floodgates have finally opened. PepsiCo North America’s Marketing VP, Ralph Santana, sounded like a social media convert when he told Financial Times, “We’re living in a new age with consumers. They are looking for more of a two-way dialogue, story-telling and word of mouth. Mediums like the digital space are much more conducive towards that.”
Facebook clearly recognizes that it is on the leading edge of the digital advertising revolution. The company is working with media researcher Nielsen, renowned for television’s Nielsen Ratings, to measure Facebook’s advertising effectiveness.
According to Financial Times, ad agencies are excited about Facebook’s promotional potential, too. Rich Gagnon, chief media officer at Draft FCB, sees Facebook as an important media outlet with the ability to reach more than 350 million people in one place. Even better, Gagnon says, Facebook can provide targeting capabilities based on demographics and interests.
The most exciting potential for advertisers using Facebook, however, may actually be Facebook Connect, which was introduced in late 2008. At last report, Facebook Connect was available on more than 15,000 websites. This set of APIs lets users “bring their identity and connections everywhere,” says Facebook.
Facebook Connect can do things like enable its users to share an advertiser’s website content with their friends, who then click back to the advertiser’s site. Tools like Facebook Connect represent a way social media can be seamlessly integrated with everything from websites to mobile devices.
Jesse Pickard, a social media specialist at digital agency Razorfish, blogged about Facebook Connect a year ago. What he had to say then has a lot of relevance to advertisers today:
“With a one-click login to Facebook Connect, websites have access to an unprecedented amount of user data. Using this data, sites now have the ability to redefine the way they display user generated content.”
“Although Facebook Connect isn’t an advertising buy, it can accomplish the same goals as one (and in an unintrusive manner). Brands can get their content into Facebook’s viral channels by letting visitors post news feed stories, status messages, photos, events, and more without leaving the website.”
Of course, advertisers have a variety of social media options available to them in addition to Facebook. Similar tools to Facebook Connect also exist, such as Google’s Friend Connect and MySpaceID.
All of this bodes well for online marketing. Big advertisers are legitimizing social media by finally including Facebook in their strategic marketing plans. They are realizing that the opportunities to make use of sophisticated social media have never been better.
Maybe for his haircut to have been truly prohetic Tracy Porter should have added Facebook.
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joevermi
