Facebook announces new ad platform, complaint immediately filed to FTC

November 14th, 2007 by Bob Burch

Facebook recently announced its plans for new targeted advertising programs on their site. The most interesting one referred to what they’re calling “social ads.”

Facebook Unveils New Advertising Program

“Social ads are small, banner-like ads tied to Facebook users’ activities and placed on their profile page mini-feeds and the news feeds of friends on Facebook. (Members use feeds to keep each other posted on their activities.)”

For example, Netflix sets up a marketer profile on Facebook to promote their DVD rental program. If I signed up with Netflix (and agreed to share this information), it would place an update on my friends’ news feeds saying something like, “Bob just signed up for Netflix and rented The Simpsons’ Movie,” followed by a small logo and text ad for Netflix.

With the launch of this new program, some consumer advocacy organizations have filed a complaint to the FTC. They claim that these programs violate a user’s privacy. This is similar to the complaint filed last year regarding the increased use of banner ads with behavioral targeting, claiming that these techniques are “invasive and manipulative.”

Here’s why I take issue with these complaints (besides the fact that I’m an advertising professional):

While surfing the Web this weekend, I witnessed a great example of behavioral targeting. After spending some time on NFL.com and ChicagoBears.com, I decided to check out our local newspaper’s website, DemocratandChronicle.com. On the homepage, I immediately noticed a banner ad for the NFL Shop featuring Chicago Bears merchandise.

Although I understand why some consumers could find this type of targeting “creepy,” wouldn’t you rather see an advertisement for a product or service you might actually be interested in? Facebook’s program could become a win-win situation for both users and marketers. Marketers can utilize user-generated information to target advertisements, while users view ads for products that they have either shown an interest in or are recommended by friends.

This entry was posted by Bob Burch on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 and is filed under Behavioral Targeting, Media, Online Advertising, Social Networking, User Experience, Viral Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.