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Joao Rodrigues had been listening and holding his tongue. For a day and a half, brand managers, ad agency creative types and Facebook strategists had gathered in airy conference rooms and around cafeteria tables in Facebook's Madison Avenue offices, filling up whiteboards and scratch pads with one heartfelt or clever tagline after another.
The idea was to come up with a big, sweeping campaign to market MegaRed, a premium alternative to fish oil pills, to users of the social network. Each ad had to be so compelling that it would get people to stop scrolling through their news feeds - what Facebook calls a thumbstopper.
But from where Mr. Rodrigues sat, as the guy who would write the checks for the proposed campaign, the Facebook people seemed to be missing an essential point.
The advantage of advertising on the world's largest social network was that it could do something television ads could not: Using sophisticated analytics, it could help him find people who were already buying fish oil or other products that suggested they were concerned about the health of their hearts, and perhaps persuade them to switch to his brand.
At the meeting, which Facebook calls a publishing garage, the company's ad strategists were saying they wanted him to spend money to show ads to every American woman 45 and older on Facebook - as many as 32 million people.
Finally, with some exasperation, Rodrigues - the marketing director for vitamins, minerals and supplements at Reckitt Benckiser, the company that owns MegaRed - blurted out what he'd been thinking. For that kind of broad blitz, he said, "I can go to television at a quarter the price."
Ever since it began selling ads 10 years ago, Facebook has been combating doubts about its value to marketers. Search engines like Google offer advertisers a direct link to people seeking out particular products, while television remains the dominant way to reach a mass audience. Now, Facebook claims, it can provide the best of both.
With its trove of knowledge about the likes, histories and social connections of its 1.3 billion users worldwide, Facebook executives argue, it can help advertisers reach exactly the right audience and measure the impact of their ads - while also, like TV, conveying a broad brand message. Facebook, which made $1.5 billion in profit on $7.9 billion in revenue last year, sees particular value in promoting its TV-like qualities, given that advertisers spend $200 billion a year on that medium.
"We want to hold ourselves accountable for delivering results," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president for global marketing solutions, in a recent interview. "Not smoke and mirrors, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't."
John Swift, who heads North American media buying for Omnicom Media Group, one of the world's largest purchasers of advertising, said that Facebook won't replace TV anytime soon, but it offers a flexible canvas to reach consumers. "You're not going to Facebook to watch a show," he said. "But Facebook offers the unique combination that you don't really see in a lot of digital platforms of amazing scale as well as a very personal engagement opportunity."
Both Facebook and marketers have strong reason to explore its potential.
Consumer brands, from the beer giant Budweiser to start-ups like the clothier Trunk Club, want to reach people where they are spending their time. More and more, that place is Facebook. In June, the social network accounted for about one of every six minutes that Americans spent online, and one of every five minutes on mobile phones, according to comScore, a research company. Mothers, the typical household's chief buyer of consumer products, are among the most dedicated users, spending nearly four times as many minutes on Facebook as other people.
Marketers are starting to become believers in the value of Facebook, shifting more of their budgets to the service from other media channels, especially print and direct mail. The company just reported unexpectedly strong growth in revenue and profits for the second quarter, prompting investors to send its stock to record highs.
Still, Facebook has changed its pitch and the products it offers advertisers so often that many marketing executives are wary. A few years ago, the company was telling brands to increase the number of people following their pages. Now it says fans are largely irrelevant. Until late last year, it was promoting the power of ads in which people's likes and comments about a brand were turned into endorsements sent to their friends.
After legions of user complaints - and a class-action lawsuit - Facebook switched gears again. Now it boasts about its ability to pinpoint potential customers on their cellphones and Facebook.com based on its data about them. The company's newest offering uses those profiles to serve targeted ads inside other companies' mobile apps. Facebook is also pushing new video ads that would compete with TV for marketing big events, like movie openings.
@ The New York Times
