Tag Archives: facebook

Proctor & Gamble’s Facebook Reset Exposes The CPG Industry’s Mobile Dilemma

Proctor and Gamble (P&G), one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies, announced last week that it was rethinking its Facebook advertising strategy. Specifically, the company has concluded that Facebook’s advanced targeting capabilities, e.g. Moms in the South who drive Japanese minivans, aren’t more effective for its brands than more generic targeting, e.g. Women 25-49. […]

Apple, The Inventor Of The “Killer App,” Suddenly Finds Itself Without One

If you work in tech, when was the last time you thought about or even uttered the words “killer app?” It wasn’t that long ago when every consumer-facing ecosystem obsessed over them. Just as the first-person shooter Halo single-handedly drove sales of the Xbox game console, a killer mobile app makes consumers lust for the hardware that supports […]

Facebook The Chameleon

Last month, Benedict Evans penned a blog post that talked about the limitations and consequences of the mental models that that we all use to frame innovation. We search for degrees of sameness to determine how much alike the new thing is to the old. For example, it was easy to understand cars as a new-and-improved […]

It’s Time To Ask Yourself, “Why Not Advertise On Mobile With Facebook?”

You don’t need to be an advertising expert to spot what’s wrong with this chart, which comes courtesy of Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins and compares time spent by US consumers with various media and the dollars that advertisers spend in those channels. Look at the bars to the far right and far left and […]

Managing The ROI Of Your Mobile App

Eighteen years ago, I was working the toughest job I’ve ever had. I was a new and used car salesman. Having grown up in a suburb of Detroit to a father who worked for General Motors for 31 years, cars are in my blood. Back then, I aspired to open a Saturn car dealership. The […]

Lessons For Mobile Marketing On Scale At Facebook

Facebook recently announced a change in its settings that enables users to self-report their gender by using about 50 different classifications. It’s the social giant’s latest move that serves both users and advertisers alike, and it represents a striking reflection of what scale means at Facebook. To understand this, I want you to re-imagine Facebook’s […]

Why Facebook’s Acquisition Of WhatsApp Looks Like A Bargain

$19 billion? The stunned reactions at Facebook’s valuation of mobile messaging service WhatsApp that are reverberating through tech hubs all over the world remind me of so much coverage of off-season baseball free agency. “How can Player X really get $15 million per year? He’s won just a few more games than he’s lost!” “Why […]

The Critical Insights You Need Following A Big Week For The Mobile Economy

Last week brought a flurry of upbeat news on the state of the mobile economy, especially the improving health of its advertising business. First, eMarketer projects that advertisers will pump $9.6 billion into mobile in 2013, with estimates that total mobile spend will eclipse desktop ads by 2016. Then, Facebook announced its plans to test […]

Why Is Facebook Killing It in Mobile, While The New York Times Struggles?

Last week, both Facebook and The New York Times reported quarterly earnings. While Facebook continues to show impressive growth in its mobile revenues – 49 percent of total revenues, which themselves increased by 66 percent – The New York Times digital and mobile advertising business limped through a down quarter. The paper actually recorded quarter-over-quarter […]

Putting Facebook’s Mobile Results In Perspective

Facebook’s quarterly gains in mobile ad revenue boosted spirits on Wall Street last week, especially for those who have been long on the social networking titan since its bumpy IPO last year. What does Facebook’s performance indicate about the overall health of the mobile economy? I see mostly positive developments and some useful lessons for […]