Untrain your brain. Why your next campaign needs to start with Facebook
In this guest post, Dan Monheit argues that habit has trained our brains to make illogical marketing choices, when all the evidence suggests Facebook is the most efficient way of spending the budget.
No matter how channel agnostic we claim to be, or whether we market ourselves as ‘full service’, ‘traditional’, ‘creative’ or ‘digital’, every person, and therefore every agency, has a natural starting point. A default setting. A genre of first ‘for instance’ that springs to mind, almost effortlessly, when trying to demonstrate how an insight, an idea, a creative spark might come to life. This ‘for instance’ could be anything, from a piece of film to a radio script to a print ad or digital banner.
Of course ideas stretch, evolve, and find their way into executional ‘for instances’ in other channels too. But we always have a first.
Over time, our first ‘for instance’s become consistent, even predictable. Not due to laziness – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s due to an innate, automatic desire to create mental efficiency, which is at the core of how we’re wired. Scientist Robin Marantz Henig described it far more eloquently than I ever could in a 2010 piece for the New York Times:
Cheque is in the mail Dan. Thanks.
Is this guy living on another planet? Has he not seen the Facebook Viewability and audience numbers from Nielsen get slammed recently?
The Nielsen figures are erroneous. Their digital data collection methodology is flawed.
Is it April 1 already?
So let me get this right – we need to retrain our brains to not default to a particular media channel when discussing ideas with clients……but start with facebook every time? Seems old mate has succumbed to the bias he’s telling us to avoid.
?
Digital good. Everything else bad. Oh and I work in a digital agency.
mumbrella 360 session – ritson vs monheit……12pm-12.03pm
Is this advertorial?
The brain’s of most consumers today are still wired to receive messages via media they have grown up with. That’s not Facebook
Or, we could start with the customer, and their customer journey or purchase path, and plan our media with the customer at centre? Seems that type of strategy would yield better outcomes for a brand than defaulting to a facebook-centric strategy?
As an old school ad guy I find this piece very persuasive and compelling in its rational – not so much for FB but for the concept of brutal natural selection and evolutionary biology applied to creative ideas and consumer insights in the jungle of social media. Well done!
For those dismissing Dan’s opinion, are there any constructive counter arguments to any of the points he raises?
Read up. Wise up.
http://adcontrarian.blogspot.c.....oding.html
I think everyone is pretty aware of the issues that were identified and fixed several months ago. How is this actually related to this article?
Dan only has a hammer, so everything looks like a nail to him
Dan. Is that you?
Utter nonsense.
Well I’ll bite. To advertise on FB is amazingly expensive and its viewing figures and metrics are unknown.
<>
11 million were logged into FB – they may never have seen a FB page. And many people have more than one account.
<>
I don’t agree with the narrowcasting model. Advertising is about reaching ALL the potential market. The fact is, Readers Digest has not overtaken the world.
I agree that a lot of people use FB, I’m not convinced however that at the current price its value for money.
If they are as good as you say, why don’t they let 3rd party’s track them in the same way EVERY OTHER publisher does? Their numbers mean nothing when they are marking their own homework.
“11 million Australians were active on Facebook today” A) Are you buying all of them every day – no, so who cares how big they are. & B) If you were buying all of them how’s your 3sec viewability going?
This is really uninformed. Advertising doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to cut through, it doesn’t even really need attention, it just needs to be there.
All the time and effort spent on creating something that has a blip of interest in social could be spent getting something on air and forcing it on people – it works much better.
Dan you need to get educated on how advertising works to stop sounding so…. uneducated.
If it doesn’t generate positive ROI on Facebook it’s unlikely to be profitable anywhere else. But then, TV ads were never about driving profitability.
OK, which example of misunderstanding should be highlighted.
I’ll go for the ultra-defensive paragraph repeated below.
“In line with this, our industry’s recent self flagellation over the ‘3 second measure’ for a video view on Facebook is completely unwarranted – at least until someone can tell me what the equivalent figure for a TV commercial is.”
First, self-flagellation implies a sense of unnecessary admission of guilt. You seem to simply not understand the gravity of such an error of judgement. Who thought it was a good idea to say that watching just 3-seconds of video (content or ad) is the equivalent of watching 100% of the content or ad. You also appear to lack cognisance that the 3-seconds is of video play and not necessarily video viewing (akin to TV ad-avoidance). Heard of auto-play? Heard of a background app (or an out-of-focus browser tab)? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
TV measurement works on an average minute audience/ So 1 second = 1/60th of a viewer to that minute. 2 seconds = 1/30th of a viewer to that minute. 3 seconds = 1/20th of a viewer. While this is a linear model at least 3 seconds = 0.05 of a viewer and not 100% of a viewer. Guess which one would be closer to the truth (should the truth be able to be precisely known).
I wonder when Coca Cola will be moving all their advertising to Facebook.
Well adidas has, Netflix has and 90% of Amazon has. Who cares what liquid diabetes does!
I thought cash for comment was just a radio thing!
Dan dan dan, drunk on the Facebook kool aid!
Don’t think it needs to be said again, other people have covered it but the self reported reach means nothing if people don’t actually see an add!
Next time you speak to Facebook, ask them to run a study for you to measure lift between a control and exposed group for roi and allow the study to be conducted by an independent third party.
Please follow up this article with the results.
Dan. Really bluntly I think hard hat is an excellent agency but your articles and thoughts on the industry are so (ironically) backwards it makes me loose faith in your business. I’d stop doing this if I were you. Sorry to be so blunt.
Love Hard Hat. Great agency.
This is why proper channel planning is so important…
Nice piece TB, but you don’t address what qualifies Siobhan McKenna for this new role. McKenna’s well-documented contribution at Ten was a disaster for both the network and her boss Lachlan Murdoch. She’s had no real management experience other than consultancy work. The only positive media experience she’s been involved with is Nova and she can’t claim that.
Some solid points of criticism, but I think a lot of it is missing the point. He’s not saying “abandon broadcast media” or any other media for that matter, he’s simply saying the social media is a highly efficient proving ground for creative ideas, campaign strategy, and new businesses.
The creative on a campaign on Facebook needs to be different to its TV, radio, or print version for sure, but using social media to test the viability of a strategy and the creative execution BEFORE investing in more expensive media is a damn good idea! Obviously, there are exceptions when it comes down to audience selection, but the idea is definitely one worth considering. Maybe replace “Facebook” with “digital advertising” and the point is made clearer?
If I sold stuff, it would depend on the stuff that I sold. Facebook first? How about Google first? Do people start a search on Facebook with intent to buy? No. They do that on Google. (Do people switch on Channel 9, with the intent to buy? Of course not.) Now, I did hear of a, now very successful, fashion seller who started out on Insta, before a website had been built. If you can quickly and swiftly gain followers who engage, then you might have some traction, for sure. ‘Tag a friend who might be interested in this back dress, I have a size 8 and two 10’s left’. Can you sell cars doing that though? Why can’t you? Again if your audience is engaged and transacts with you then why can’t you? You could put bums on seats by tagging mates and people do. Do popular bands need to advertise anywhere other than Facebook to fill a gig these days? If I am looking for a new winter jacket, to keep me warm on the way to a gig, would I search for ‘winter jacket’ on Facebook? NO I would Google it. When do I invest on a massive TV ad if I sell fashionable jackets? Do I need to? Depends I guess? You would be crazy not to be all over Google though, surely? Back to Facebook: If you have a strong following on Facebook, do you actually need to pay Facebook anything at all? There is a Nando’s post on FB doing the rounds. It has over 10,000 comments and simply asks (I might not have this word for word.): ‘Type @A and tag the first person who pops up who now has to shout you a Nando’s’. Facebook first = not necessarily. Radio, TV, Print, FIRST? No waaaaaaay.
Good article fella. In my experience, it offers the most economical testing ground and pound for pound the best ROI
But does it drive incremental roi or is social taking credit for all the natural activity that would have occurred?