Content Scares Advertisers Away From Social-Networking Sites

from the this-offensive-content-is-brought-to-you-by... dept

Thanks to the extensive use of ad networks and other middlemen, it's common for companies to not know each and every place online where their advertisements appear. For instance, a lot of big companies claimed ignorance when their ads showed up through adware products, saying that they had no idea they were supporting the practice. Last week, a number of British companies became alarmed with their ads on the Facebook social-networking site appeared on the profile pages of the British National Party, a far-right wing political party that's generally seen as racist and fascist. The companies yanked their ads from the site, and now the British government says it won't advertise on user-generated content sites for fear that its ads would run alongside contentious or undesirable content. This is a serious concern for many businesses, which don't want to be seen as supporting or associated with certain groups or types of content. But it's a potentially bigger problem for Facebook and other social-networking and user-generated content sites. These sites' major challenge is figuring out how to monetize the massive amounts of traffic they get, and their poor click-through rates are already one factor that holds down the rates they can charge. Couple those low rates with a dearth of quality advertisers scared off by the sites' content, and it sounds like a vicious cycle for social-networking and UGC sites.

Filed Under: advertising, social networking, user generated content
Companies: facebook

Newspapers Feeling The Brunt Of Housing Slump

from the crack-up dept

Real estate professionals aren't the ones seeing the way the internet is affecting their industry. Major newspapers, which already have enough problems to deal with, are taking a major hit from lower real estate listings (via Paul Kedrosky), many of which have shifted to the internet. There are two things going on here. There's the general shift of all advertising away from newspapers and there's the housing slump, which has taken its own toll on listing volume. At this point, the newspapers are trying to make the case that the slow business is mainly the result of the housing slump, rather than anything more fundamental. Fair enough, but then you have to look at newspaper earnings during the housing boom, which were already quite poor, and adjust them down even further, in order to get an accurate picture of their past performance.

Filed Under: advertising, housing, newspapers

India Starts To Flex Its Creative Side

from the the-creative-class dept

When companies move part of their operations to India, it's usually for something like back office support or software development. Creative work is typically not the first thing that companies would think to move there. But Chinese computer maker Lenovo has announced that India will be the home of its advertising operations, and that the unit will be tasked with designing advertising campaigns for a global audience. It may be too early to call it a trend, but this should be worrisome to the advertising industry's New York-based stalwarts. One advantage that Indian advertisers have is that they're used to building campaigns that play well in multiple languages, simply due to the various languages within India itself. For them, advertising to a global audience is a natural next step. And, of course, there are cost advantages. It's sill much cheaper to hire advertising professionals in India than it is in New York. While incumbent advertising agencies are likely to stick around for some time, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them move more of their own operations to the country, a la other services firms, like IBM.

Filed Under: advertising, india
Companies: lenovo

Google Print Revival Still Kicking

from the printing-money? dept

Late last year, Google announced that it would take another shot at selling ads for print media. The company had tried this once before with magazines, but the effort didn't pan out particularly well. This time around, the service is for newspapers, and the company believes it may be working out a little better. After the initial trial, the company is ready to let more advertisers participate in the program. Participating newspapers say they've been fairly pleased with the offering, as the platform is allowing them to find new advertisers. Still, the platform can only accomplish so much. No advertising system is going to change the fact that the slump in the newspaper business is rapidly getting worse. And of course, print ads will never have other attributes that make Google's traditional model appealing, such as the ease with which performance and ROI can be measured.

Filed Under: advertising, newspapers
Companies: google