Advertisers on Facebook / Advertising in a social age

 Social has no bigger player than Facebook (although I still favor Twitter). For the first time, Facebook asked a dozen top agencies to come up with an ad unit. Our teams across all of Leo Burnett and ARC brainstormed hundreds of ideas. I helped conceive of the winning entry. Also, I consulted with my brand Purina to help them use this new media to engage their customers. 

The sparkbox entry was deceptively simple. What made it work, and win, over hundreds of entrants (we actually thought of six) was it’s fit with how people like to share. They value quick, snackable bits of interaction. It’s no anomoly that the ‘like’ button beat out the ‘digg’ button. People want to engage, but they want quick rewards. Sparkbox delivered that, along with a brand message.

In consultation with Beneful, Friskies, and Fancy Feast, we wanted to use social to not only allow a pleasurable way for people to engage in the content, but to boost the brand profile in natural search. The ‘together we can recycle’ project succeeded for its brief, sharable goal. By bypassing the use of Flash, we also were able to use social to bring this message to many due to it’s affinity to natural search, shown here as #1 in a non-branded search.