MySpace beating Facebook on ads? Well, duh

There's a big Wall Street Journal piece on Tuesday about how MySpace is still seriously beating Facebook in the advertising and marketing game, regardless of the fact that Facebook has started to breeze past it in traffic.

This is one of those stories geared toward the Journal's less technical readers, undoubtedly, since most of the details are no surprise to social media junkies. But the take-home point is a good one: Big media ownership has been helpful to MySpace, whereas the independent Facebook is still learning the advertising game.

MySpace is owned by News Corp. (which also owns the Wall Street Journal) and hence has much deeper and more established connections to Madison Avenue. MySpace is also more heavily reliant on traditional display ads, whereas Facebook has chosen to take a more difficult route with "engagement ads," announced in August, and other forms of "social advertising." It's part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's continual mantra of "focus on innovation and the profits will come eventually."

But Facebook had some notable success recently with a Ben & Jerry's "engagement ad" on Election Day. The ice cream company sponsored an event RSVP that appeared on Facebook's home page, where members could respond "yes" or "no" to its Election Day offer of free ice cream for anyone who voted. RSVPs from friends would show up in members' news feeds, meaning more exposure for Ben & Jerry's. And if the snaking line I saw outside a Ben & Jerry's near NYU last Tuesday night was any indicator, the marketing effort worked.

In other words, this advertising race isn't over yet.

[clh22793]

It seems like MySpace is the poster child for startups gone mainstream/corporate. I guess that makes Facebook the poster child for startups gone broke...or soon will be if they can't turn things around.

[Seanathome]

I believe businesses will start to advertise on Facebook more because Facebook has the sense of community and involvement that Myspace just can't achieve. When you can get people to willing engage with your business ads, then you'd rather go that route... ;)

[myles taylor]

As Facebook gets the traffic it will start to get the ad revenue. Advertisers aren't going to ignore that kind of traffic.

[prohiphop]

You can't assume Facebook was the reason for that success due to the fact that you didn't have to go to Facebook to find out about or get the free ice cream and many big blogs posted about it.

The one's I'm finding don't even mention Facebook.

Of course, Ben & Jerry's has a long history of free ice cream giveaways. Once the line starts it's also advertising. All those college kids know what they're looking at when they see a long line at Ben & Jerry's.

[afratta]

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