Tuesday, May 15, 2012

GM Stops Advertising on Facebook / Ford Reacts Quickly (Exclusive)

The timing of the announcement certainly is curious to some but today General Motors (GM) announced that they would be pulling their paid advertising from Facebook. For the full article please check out the Wall Street Journal Online today.

The news cannot be welcome news to the Menlo Park Social Media Company. Many Facebook leaders including Mark Zuckerberg have been on the road building interest in Facebook's IPO. It's still too early to see how news of losing GM's $10 Million dollar annual ad spend will effect Facebook's initial offering but yesterday's news had the initial stock price upwards to $38 dollars a share -- much higher than the initial $28 dollars to $35 dollars per share expected. 

Now Morgan Auto Group has a GM franchise. In fact I used to run that dealership specifically. I am reluctant to comment specifically on what GM is thinking in pulling from Facebook but I will say that I do feel that there is some great value in what Facebook offers as an "Identity Platform." 

Ford Motor Company has shown some real leadership in Social and has some strong "Faces" behind some first class social efforts. One of those faces is former Toyota Exec James Farley who is now Ford's Chief Marketing exec. Another and a personal favorite of mine is Scott Monty who I was able to meet earlier this year. So instantly upon hearing the news from GM today I (and many others) took to Twitter to get Ford's take from Scott Monty. 

Scott any read on what GM is hoping to accomplish by both pulling from Facebook and timing of announcement? 

Our focus is on Ford and our continuing relationship with Facebook. It's all down to execution. 

Scott continued in other replies to various Twitter Questions: 

"We've seen FB ads as effective when strategically combined with engagement & innovation, not as a straight media buy." 

In one especially pointed response Monty responded to a Tweet stating "Bad news for Facebook" with "Or a play for attention." 

While I have no crystal ball to tell you whether or not Facebook's stock offering will sink or swim I will say this. Because of guys like Farley and Monty, Ford Motor Company will be on the cutting edge and continue to create distance between themselves and other manufacturers. They will do this by engaging in this new age, not by turning their backs. 

Brett Morgan is the Variable Operations Manager for Morgan Auto Group which owns and operates 11 franchises in the state of Florida. (Tampa, FL) 

4 comments:

  1. Ford Motor Company's Scott Monty reacts to GM's decision to pull advertising from Facebook

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  2. Brett, smart move. If you crash your car, it's usually operator error, not the manufacturer's fault. Thus, we would likely fault GM or their agency for not setting up, optimizing, or measuring campaigns properly. This makes GM look bad more than Facebook's ad platform.

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  3. Dennis love the metaphor. Frankly if GM thinks there are better places to spend their money that's fine...but I think Facebook works in a different light in an age when consumers have a natural distrust to traditional marketing messages.

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  4. keep in mind that sometimes ROI is a little hard to measure w/social media....NOT impossible, but can be challenging. and there may be more happening at GM that has brought on this decision than meets the eye. stay tuned....

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