Storm over ads on social sites

by Nicola Clark, Marketing 07-Aug-07, 08:45

LONDON - Advertisers' confidence in online social networks has been rocked by concerns over unmonitored content.

Last week, Vodafone suspended advertising on Facebook after its ads appeared on the profile page of the right-wing British National Party. This prompted a flurry of other advertisers, including the AA, COI and Virgin Media, to follow suit.

Peter Deane, head of marketing at AA Road, said it had instructed its agency, i-level, to remove its ads from all social networks until assurances could be given over content. Virgin Media said it would not advertise on social networks until 'definitive guarantees' were in place to ensure ads did not appear alongside offensive content.

Media agencies claim that a range of brands are similarly reviewing their approach to social-networking sites, while others, such as PepsiCo, have already put strict guidelines in place.

'Where we do not approve of a website's content, we ensure our advertising is removed,' said a spokesman for Pepsi.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau, attributed Facebook's problem to 'growing pains', and added: 'MySpace and Bebo carve out dedicated portions of their sites that are brand-safe.'

However, a spokesman for ISBA claimed that while sites are happy to take advertisers' money, they are not investing enough in policing content. 'How long can Facebook sustain its business model when it features content from the BNP?' he asked.

As Marketing went to press, ads on the BNP's main Facebook page appeared to have been removed, but executions for 3, ITV Local, the AA and La Redoute were still in place on the site's discussion pages.

Orange has said that it intends to continue to advertise on social-network sites.

Comments

tom henshaw - 07/08/2007

These ads, like all facebook ads, appeared on randomly chosen pages, which will inevitably include those with potentially offensive content. While companies obviously don't want even to be mentioned anywhere within earshot of right-wing extremists, they might need to accept this possibility as the cost of maintaining a presence in Web 2.0. Marketers should know by now that they can't control where their brand name appears on the Web. They can pull all the ads they want from Facebook and other sites, but if bloggers, Facebook users or members of the BNP want to post about Vodafone, they're going to. Ok, posting a message isn't the same as advertising/ sponsoring a site, but ads on social networking sites only facilitate content indirectly, if at all. In the absence of near-continual monitoring, Facebook, with its millions of users (all, in effect, publishers) clearly will face problems in attempting to restrict ads to pages with neutral content.

Simon Hamer - 07/08/2007

Could it be possible tha the holier than thou position of many of these brands has more to do with negotiating clout and press reporting cloumn iches and airtime given over to their "outrage"? Neo-nazi video games stirring up religious fervour and blood curdling anti vivisection camapigns etc gain much from the subsequent pres rush. If social networks didnt court this sort of controversy it is likely that many campaigns would have ignored the medium in the first case. ""she doth protest too much methinks"

robert proctor - 07/08/2007

“This is yet another example of why “blind buying” on traditional ad networks simply doesn’t work. The problem with blind buying is that advertisers buy remnant inventory – terrific for direct response but lacking the controls required for brand advertising. If advertisers want millions of impressions without being on any properties that might embarrass them or damage their brands while paying a minimal amount of CPM, they may find publishers interested in their ad, but it will not be efficient. Working with branded vertical ad networks, such as those powered by Adify (www.adify.com) and run by trusted brands such as the Guardian, is another way to get effective niche targeting. Because The Guardian is using Adify for this network, advertisers can pre-select the publishers to be included in their campaign. And Publishers can approve advertisers as well.” Rob Proctor, Head of Business Development, Adify Europe