As radio competes with digital platforms for revenue, and as the agency community re-evaluates everything, a recent New York Times article about Facebook’s advertising efforts caught my attention.
You may recall that when the Facebook IPO launched a little more than two years ago, there were serious questions about its ability to connect with consumers and successfully sell them products and services. The thinking was that no one pays attention to the ads on Facebook. And it got worse, because just prior to Facebook going public, General Motors made an ill-timed evaluation that couldn’t have helped the latter’s stock performance. At the time, GM concluded that Facebook didn’t work for car sales and discontinued their $10 million dollar spending budget on the platform.
Other advertisers followed suit, prompting Forrester analyst Nate Elliott to remark that “Companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget—a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users.”
Obviously, that was a tough pill to swallow, so it’s fascinating to study how Facebook not only recovered the confidence of major brands, but now works very closely with them to ensure their advertising dollars produce results.
What a difference two years make. Facebook’s stock is up – way up – and now, more and more advertisers are enjoying results on the platform.
One of Facebook’s techniques to prove its value and to create partnerships with advertisers is putting together “Publishing Garages” – strategy sessions where Facebook marketers work with current and potential sponsors to conceive, write, and create successful advertising programs. These sessions help form a better understanding of client goals, and how Facebook’s tools can help achieve them.
Because Facebook has been fighting perceptions that its ads aren’t effective, it has been forced to work closely with advertisers to prove its value. And the road hasn’t been easy. As the New York Times notes, the formula of success has changed over time, from adding more “likes,” to fan endorsements, to today’s mantra – the ability to target specific audiences on the platform in granular detail.
One of the goals of these “Publishing Garages” is to create ads that are “thumbstoppers” – that is, they are so compelling that a Facebook user will stop their mobile scrolling through the News Feed to check them out.
These brainstorming activities aren’t sporadic for Facebook. The Times reports they’ve moderated 200 of these “Publishing Garages” for more than 100 brands.
The benefits are obvious:
- Facebook analysts get closer to big advertisers and learn a better sense of their goals.
- Conversely, companies gain a better appreciation of Facebook, its assets and features, and how to best optimize the platform.
- The two sides work together to create more effective “thumbstopping ads,” thus building relationships.
Ultimately, the proof is in the analytics – specific Facebook data that demonstrates the “likability” and “shareability” of ads, not to mention reading through the comments. If you remember visiting Arbitron in Laurel, Beltsville, or Columbia and sitting in that little room all day and reading diary comments, you know how riveting they can be. They may not be quantitative metrics, but the stories they provide about brands and how consumers use them are priceless.
But the most important metric is sales – and that’s something that any advertiser can measure. According to The Times, many Facebook advertisers are pleased with the results.
When you think about it, the parallels of Facebook’s situation to radio are fascinating.
Facebook has to prove itself to be a viable advertising medium.
So does radio. Again and again, we’ve seen advertisers and marketers question radio’s value despite decades of positive performance. Radio needs to re-establish perceptions about its ability to move product, as well as change hearts and minds in a rapidly evolving media environment.
Facebook is taking the time to work directly with advertisers on its creative.
Radio needs to get back to doing this, too. As anyone working in radio knows only too well, the quality of creative has seriously eroded over the past many years, as overburdened production directors toil for multiple stations in clusters. The need to sit down with advertisers and brainstorm with them to create more effective ads has never been greater. Local radio has the ability to impact local advertisers on Main Street but it has to commit to taking the time to doing it.
Facebook has to teach advertisers the best ways to use its platform and the features it offers.
Radio does, too. How many advertisers truly understand the power of live reads, endorsements, integrating other assets like podcasts, mobile, and text messaging sponsorships? If a DOS or GSM or sales rep thinks that advertisers, buyers, and planners truly understand what radio has to offer in 2014, they may be sadly mistaken. Re-education is especially necessary with new legions of Gen Y agency professionals.
Facebook is investing time, money, and resources into advertiser education and contact.
Radio needs to reassess its new competition for advertising revenue, and respond accordingly. As we have been saying for several years now, the enemy is no longer just other stations, clusters, and companies in town. Increasingly, radio is going up against digital advertising brands – and they are bright, shiny objects to buyers and account managers.
Facebook wants its users to stop their scrolling and check out these ads, seeking to create “thumbstoppers.”
And this is a tough one for radio, because a cluttered advertising environment has forced programmers to tactically approach this in just the opposite way. Only creative spotload architectures, and reduced commercial inventories can create advertising opportunities that can be considered win-win-win for clients, listeners, and yes, stations themselves. KNDD’s two-minute promise is one approach that might have the added benefit of higher ratings, a cleaner advertising environment, and an audience that ends up actually hearing more ads rather than running away from them.
If you’re an advertiser looking for results and ROI, who ya gonna call?
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Fred – you’re right on the money. Its hard to prove, but I’ve long believed that the flat to down new normal for radio revenue is as much due to the decline in the quality of its sales effort as increased competition and lower delivery. What Facebook does is just good old consultative selling and it rarely happens in radio anymore.
Why? Because aggressive, career focused talented sales people don’t gravitate to the kind of work environment common in radio. Non-competes that exclude any media related business for 60+ miles pretty much preclude upward mobility of any kind making sellers effectively tenant farmers who can never pay their way out of their first farm. Goal post moving on bonuses, punitive meetings and late and early hours and focus on assets that can’t help advertisers all have transformed radio sales into a lousy career move.
Wanna bet Facebook sellers don’t work under anything like those conditions? Then there’s the question of whether radio even KNOWS what makes its ads most effective and under what circumstances anymore. When you’re tracking 4 shifts, doing imaging for an entire cluster and production for 3 stations, where do you find the time to even consider such things?
Once upon a time, the Mays family used to say that they were in the business of selling their advertisers goods and services. Where does that fall now on my radio operators’ priorities?
Any guesses where radio’s revenue would be now if it focused more on finding out what its customers needed and showed them how to use radio to get it? Just for fun, radio should interview some sales people from more progressive, customer focused industries and ask them what it would take for them to move to radio.
Thanks, Bob. I read the Times article and saw a brand in Facebook that found itself under the gun with something big to prove. And they’ve conceptualized and actualized solutions that are attracting more and more advertisers. Whether radio realizes it or not, it needs to do many of these same things. I think back to that political session the Edison guys moderated with Melman and Winston, both of whom dismissed radio as a viable advertising medium. Radio can and should follow Facebook (and undoubtedly other Internet businesses) to help redefine its sales and marketing value. I truly believe that radio has much to offer – especially locally – but the industry needs to do more to prove its point. Appreciate your comment.