Will marketers one day laugh at themselves for having thought that Facebook was going to replace TV ?

It’s an Andersen’s tale that most of you probably know:  an Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance hires two tailors who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, shouts that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all; his cry is then taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession. Since then the expression “The King is naked” is used when someone eventually says what everyone knew, saw or at least suspected but had so far kept for themselves.

I sometimes have a similar feeling on the relevance of social media in Marketing. There is no question that Facebook has changed the way people interact with each other, nor that it consumes time that people were previously devoting to other activities, such as watching TV (or doing sport, but the consequences of that are not my topic today). And there are these charts showing that it took radio 38 years (and 13 for TV) to reach the penetration achieved by Facebook in 9 months.

Then why using the analogy with Andersen’s tale ? Are advocates of using social media as a Marketing tool just a band of crooks followed by a crowd of people fearing to appear unfit for their position ? There is a risk of that: I was really upset last week when I read a presentation titled: “10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Consumer Behavior on Facebook”. Not exactly “The 10 Facebook commandments for Marketers”, but a similar ambition. If you read it fast, you get a feeling of “Gosh, we must do something, we have to be there, and quick”; see for yourself:

• slide 3: “52% of Americans over 18 spend at least one hour a week on Facebook”
• slide 4: “People interact with their favorite brands on Facebook far more than other social media networks”
• slide 5: “Engagement is real: 78% of people who “like” a brand on Facebook like fewer than 10 brands”
• slide 6: “58% of users “like” a brand because they are a customer”
• slide 7: “Most fans “interact” with brands, primarily through reading brand posts and newsfeeds”.

Convinced ? Let’s take a closer look at the figures and the small footnotes under the graphs:
 

• slide 3: that still leaves 48% of Americans over 18 who spend less than one hour a week on Facebook (actually 25% who never use it, and 23% who spend less than one hour), compared to the 3-4 hours that all Americans on average spend in front of their TV, daily); and by the way, the 52% are calculated as a percentage of those who go online (the proportion of these vs. total population is nowhere to be found), so these 52% are actually less than the half of all Americans
• slide 4: true, 34% on Facebook vs. 4% on Twitter; but is 34% something to write home about (especially when again calculated as a percentage of those who go on line) ? Depends on the kind of interaction – just bear with me; and only 4% on Twitter ? Yes, only 4% ! Draw your conclusions.
• slide 5: that one deserves its place in the Guiness Book of Records ! It is like saying of someone who read less than 10 books in his whole life that this is because he liked the ones he read so much ! Would the interpretation “because they could not care about the hundreds of other brands they know” not be more correct (honest ?)
• slide 6: well, could you expect people to like a brand they are not a customer of ? And, worth adding, 57% are fans in order to receive discounts and promotions – makes me think of these spoiled children who, once a year, (usually early January) turn into “fans” of their grandparents – take the money and run
• - slide 7: 77% read the posts and the offers (here we are again) posted by the brand, but only 17% “share experiences and news stories with others about the brand”, i.e. the kind of interaction that you can start calling a conversation. But just a minor detail: the 17% are calculated on those who are fans of brands on Facebook – that was 34% (slide 4) of those who go on line; 17% of 34% is a mere 6%, in other words marginal.

So, at best a case of naivety and oversimplification, at worst a brilliant example of figure manipulation and intellectual dishonesty – which brings us back to our two tailors.

At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur pretending that no meteorite has hit the ground, I will argue that the case of using social media in Marketing still is at least largely unproven. True, there are a myriad of examples of nice and well executed ideas … but figures of volumes shipped, of consumers reached, … remain low. Can we reasonably call 4.000 downloads of a magazine online version a success when its offline version sells more than 200.000 copies, week in week out ? When will we see a good case showing not only a positive cost vs. benefit analysis (as social media cost is by essence limited, that hurdle is not too difficult to overcome), but also a superior return vs. “classic” media, and numbers that are big enough to convince us that the brand’s fate has been significantly influenced, and that this influence will not be short-lived ?

In the meantime reviewing our basics could help. We know that a shopper spends just a few seconds on average in front of a shelf before making her choice – the reason why your packaging must shout who you are and avoid big design changes. And suddenly, back home, our shopper would now be willing not only to devote some of her precious leisure time to our brands, but be ready to engage into some kind of exchange called a conversation ? A conversation with a can of peas ? With a pack of fish sticks ? With a bottle of shower gel ? “Sorry, but when it comes to conversations, I have friends for that”.

Am I pushing it far to make my point ? To some extent I have to admit. But I am getting more and more concerned that partly due to our deep fascination for innovation, partly for fearing of not knowing how to handle social media well, and partly for not daring to challenge (currently) conventional wisdom, we are  losing our common sense and  embark on activities that do not resist the test of a few basic questions such as: “How many will see it ?”, “How many will act on it ?” and “Is it the best way to spend our time and money ?”. And that by the time answers become obvious, Marketing’s credibility is down, and the tailors have moved to another kingdom.
 

Now, if you still feel like rushing to buy Facebook shares, that’s your call … but you won’t see me in the queue.

Jean Cornet,

Managing Consultant at THoM