socialmediocrity

I’m a big fan of social advertising. I like the idea that advertisers can use that information to give me increasingly relevant ads.

However, as mush as I tolerate, nay, embrace this new model, I can’t abide lazy creative.

Take this example. It talks to me as a fan of Liverpool FC. Bingo. Targeting achieved. I am one. Every bit of one.

But where it fails is the message. Apart from ending the question in their title with a full-stop instead of a question mark, their copy doesn’t seem right somehow.

Call yourself a copy-writer?

Yes, I’ve got the official shirt (two of them, actually).

Yes, I’ve got the hat (even the missus has one, reluctantly)

And yes, the scarf too (again at least 2 of those)

And yet somehow, somewhere, in the mind of a senseless out-of-touch advertiser or copy-writer, the hat-trick has not yet been completed.

Now last time I checked, a hat-trick in football constituted three goals. I remember Robbie Fowler scoring the premierships quickest ever (just over 4 1/2minutes against Arsenal in ’94). Liverpool won 3-0 so he definitely didn’t score more than three.

I remember Peter “good-touch-for-a-big-man” Crouch’s perfect hat-trick, also against Arsenal, in ’07. Liverpool won 4-1, but Peter Crouch only scored 3 of them.

But our learned advertiser, which I trust is the banking partner concerned and not the club themselves, is determined to sell me the mythical fourth constituent of every fan’s memorabilia “hat-trick” – a club-branded credit card.

The proliferation of self-serve ad platforms around social networks and pother web properties has brought advertising to the masses. Any and every small business, entrepeneur, start-up hopeful can reach the audience they want to without the rigmarole of finding a creative agency, or even just a bloke with Photoshop.

Ever since Google’s AdWords platform, advertising has become something of a DIY-ers dream.

And therein lies the problem. For all the good that feels like it brings, there is pain to be had, especially for the user. Take our first example, in a series that I suspect might run for many, and which sister-site www.micro-targeting.com has started exposing already.

Let's see. £30 in 10 mins. 60 mins in one hour...30....60....90 ...oh bllx, £500 an hour.

The title is enticing enough. £500 per hour? Well that’s £1,000 before lunch time, even for a late starter like me.

But hang on a minute. What’s the catch? In just 10 minutes I could earn £30. Woo Hoo! You can stick your job whe….hang on one cotton-picking minute.

FAIL.

…to be continued.

see also Advertising on Facebook just doesn’t add up

BREAKING NEWS. Those clever people at the Wheat Crunchies factory have embedded iPhone navigation technology into every packet.

In something of a follow up to an earlier post, Facebook-tastic. Let’s all be fans of everything, it seems Facebook have taken things further.

Or it’s broken.

I was slightly bemused by this.

I don’t know if there is some undefined relationship between the Farm Tavern, a publilc house in Brighton popular with my friend Kate, and the artist Martha Herbst, also from Brighton it seems. But on further investigation, there doesn’t appear to be an obvious one, or at least not one involving Kate. Looking at Martha’s 63 fans, Kate is not amon gst them yet, even.

We’ve seen time and again that micro-targeting is far less effective at increasing response rates if you don’t also micro-message the audience, and once you remove the relevance in this manner, it is easy to see why. This is nothing more than an untargeted ad for Martha Herbst, with a random picture of one of my friends on.

It seems to be a backward step and somewhat puzzling if it is a Facebook initiative, though I would be intrigued to see the results these are generating. Of course this could be what happens when adding Social Actions to your campaign goes wrong, and if that’s the case it is perhaps something Facebook need to protect their users against.

I was surprised to hear that Sweemo had taken the beta handcuffs “well and truly off”, on the grounds I hadn’t come across them at all during their beta stage. Intrigued, I took a quick look around the site.

The basic premise seemed jolly enough – a place where people offer sweet moments to one another. Quite what defines a “sweet moment” remains something of a mystery, given the range of things (or moments) on offer. For me the description implies something of a kind-hearted and small offering, so to be confronted with the offer of a VIP table at the Playboy party in London for £4,700, however tempting, struck me as neither sweet nor momentary.

I was disappointed though to find that the other “sweet moments” we were meant to be “offering one another” came with, typically, a not insignificant charge on them. Probably a misunderstanding in the way I had read the words, but I was expecting a Trade-a-Favor type of service, where we disposed of cash, and offered each other favors, or well-intended offers of help or service in return for the same.

You can imagine a person to person version of this (such as TAF’s) being incredibly successful, though like most things it perhaps awaits a killer application. Amongst friends and partners, of course the shackles can come off somewhat in terms of what can be offered, and perhaps porivate and closed groups is what the service needs.

Anyhow, back to Sweemo.

Unfortunately I left disappointed. A case of over-promise in my opinion, as what has actually been delivered seems to be a somewhat convoluted mashup of eBay and Red Letter Days. Apologies to the team that have doubtless worked hard on it, but the basic premise struck me as being flawed, and I can’t see myself rushing back. Unless I need that table at the Playboy party in a hurry of course.

I feel compelled to take the time to acknowledge my erstwhile colleague for pointing out the “0″ in 2.0 is in fact a zero.

Thank you, Ben, for putting the “oh” firmly back in zero.