Missed Opportunities in Media Buying

At electricArtists we currently don't do any media buying for our clients, although some people say that we should. 

Maybe one day we will, but right now there are two reasons why media buying as a business doesn't interest me all that much. 

First, as a business owner I'm not crazy about the idea of building a business on something that's almost entirely based on fixed margins.

Second, all too often media buying leaves too many good opportunities on the table because on the whole, it's not very creative. 

So that I don't get pummeled by all of the people who I respect and admire that buy and sell media, I should clarify by saying that I think media buying can be creative and sometimes it is. It's just that too often, it's not.  And because it's not very creative, it's also often not very strategic as well.  I'm a fan of media buying when it is used to it's fullest. But too often, media buyers can be lazy.   

Here's a prime example: 

Tonight in my Facebook News Feed I noticed the following sponsored ad for an upcoming movie called Good Luck Chuck. 

Here's the ad:

 

The ad then links to a sponsored page on Facebook that looks like this:

So here's my problem with it:

It's a huge missed opportunity.

It took me two seconds to realize that this deal was most likely done between a relatively uninformed buyer who doesn't yet understand Facebook and most likely a relatively lazy seller who never explained  how Facebook actually works and how to maximize it if you are going to purchase it.

At a minimum the studio paid a quarter of a million dollars for this media buy. And with the ad buy they received a sponsored page on Facebook as part of the deal. (If they had purchased banner ads it would have linked to the film's official website but because they paid a premium to be added to the News Feed, they got a sponsored page)

So what's wrong with the page?

For me, everything.

First, the page has nothing to do with Facebook and leverages absolutely zero of Facebook's platform.  All of the features on the page link out to the web with not one element of the page leveraging any of the things that Facebook charges a premium for.

Here a quick run down of all the "cool" things you can do on the Good Luck Chuck Facebook page.

You can send your friend "a kiss".

Over email.

You can send your friend a Good Luck Chuck e-card.

Again. Over email.

You can add a Good Luck Chuck icon to your profile.

To your AOL IM profile, Not Facebook.

You can download Good Luck Chuck wallpaper.

To your computer desktop.

There's not one thing on the page that has anything to do with Facebook other than adding the obligatory user comments (which currently show an equal amount of negative comments to good ones),

But for less than $20,000 more, the studio could have developed a suite of terrific Facebook native apps that would have linked fans together, created ongoing buzz on Facebook, and developed a widespread presence on users  profile pages. All of these things would have increased in value over time leading up to opening weekend.  That extra time and effort to create something that was not only good, but native to Facebook, could have made the six figure ad buy worth a whole lot more than just another set of impressions to add to the media plan.   

There's one thing that the ad buy did achieve though. It allowed the media buyer to tell the client with a smile:

"Hey, you're on Facebook" 

It let them check off a box on their media plan.

For me, media buying on Facebook not only has it's place and it's value, it's also something that we recommend to our clients.  Media buying allows you to reach people that viral distribution won't.  But for me, it should be done in a manner that takes into account (a) where it is paced and (b) who it is that it's reaching. 

This campaign did neither.

 

Comments

[Dino]

Excellent post, right on the money Marc.