Ted McConnell’s 30 years within Procter & Gamble include three as a company futurist, so when the company’s general manager for interactive marketing and innovation questions Facebook’s merits for marketers, it is hard to dismiss as Luddite carping, writes Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.
In a speech to a digital media conference in P&G’s home town of Cincinnati, McConnell said it was “predatory” and “arrogant” to “hijack” conversations on social networks.
“Who said this is media?” he asked. “Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody.”
P&G is a huge advertising spender online and off, and has been one of the most innovative creators of online communities, even for unglamorous products from Pampers pull-ups to sanitary towels, so McConnell’s comments will hurt.
He tempered them by saying he was speaking in a personal capacity, and said he saw value in some Facebook applications.
But his comment that he doesn’t want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook and his concern about monetising “the real estate in which someone is trying to break up with their girlfriend” touch on two of the most sensitive subjects in social networking: users’ privacy and the validity of the advertising-based business model.
His comments have sparked predictable debate in the marketing press .
Surprisingly, less has been made of his admission that while exploring social networks’ targeting potential, he got a subordinate to find a 22- to 27-year-old female P&G employee in Cincinnati “who likes sex and Cocoa Puffs.”
Worryingly, he says he was successful.
