Wired has published an article on their website that finally, FINALLY, confronts the 500lbs. elephant in the room when it comes to advertising on social networking sites. To paraphrase, it's invasive and it doesn't work. For the last five years, "Social Networking" has taken the place of "Viral" as the most overused buzzword in your company's marketing department and today, Wired reported on what any network user could have told you all along, that just because users are willing to volunteer information about themselves does not mean that they welcome that information to be used to bombard them with marketing messages. Speaking at a digital marketing conference in Cincinnati recently, Procter & Gamble's head of interactive marketing and innovation, Ted McConnell stated...
“Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody…. We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it...What in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”
Cheers Ted!
Read the entire article here.
