Beancast Marketing Podcast – we talk Google, iAds, Facebook and the FTC

Posted on | August 23, 2010 | No Comments

Had a great time hanging with everyone on the Beancast Marketing Podcast again yesterday. We talked about all kinds of things, ranging from Google to Apple and from the FTC to Facebook. Locations (Facebook) and let-downs (iAds), followback etiquette (Twitter) and fear-mongering (FTC), we covered a lot of ground. Here’s more info scoured from Bob’s pre-show notes (questions posed in these notes are answered in the podcast, so you’ll have to listen to the show – it’s worth it):

iAd-versity: After what seemed to be a good start with iADs, now come the waves of dissension. It seemed like all at once folks started to complain about the slow roll-out, tight controls and the creative input that Apple is demanding. Erik, we all know why advertisers are ponying up dollars to be on this platform, but can a model that so significantly infringes on agency turf survive? Isn’t the final say whether it works or not? It’s been successful for the brands that have rolled out on the platform — could this system Apple has in place actually cut agencies out of the picture? Won’t brands eventual balk at paying twice for the same ad — once to the agency and then again to Apple who gets to recreate it? Who will win that fight? Apple’s notorious penchant for not sharing metrics seems to have also arisen on the iADs platform — will they need to establish more transparency if they want to survive? Previous so-called “walled-garden” models have always broken down (the mobile carriers themselves offer a good example), so is it just a matter of time?

Google Bids Up Bidding: An interesting fracas flared up in the search world this week. Eric Goldman, writing over at Search Engine Land, called Google to task for it’s practice of participating in its own Adword auctions. Duane, could you explain the heart of Eric’s argument? It’s obvious to a layman that bidding in your own auction is not fair, but Google doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem — why not? Even though Google says that it believes in the system and abides by its own rules, doesn’t their participation artificially increase the final bid of certain keywords? Goldman makes the argument that they essentially have a system where they can always win in bidding — is this a fair analysis? The one problem I had with Goldman’s piece was that it didn’t take into account customer perceptions regarding house ads — don’t consumers look at house ads differently than third-party ads? Does the presence of a house ad really drive down the results of a paying ad? What is the solution — shouldn’t Google have the right to advertise on their own site?

Facebook Places: Facebook finally announced Places, their long-anticipated geo-location service that strips all the fun of foursquare and makes your whereabouts public for little to no purpose except that they have 500 million users and it’s bound to be a success. Joe, did I get it right? Can this actually provide the engagement level of the first-movers in the space? Was it smart for foursquare to still try to compete — the other competitors are doing deals with Facebook, right? Do you think Facebook will evolve and diversify Places with more game-like elements or is what we see now what we’ll get? Is diversifying with game functions what they expect 3rd parties to do? What about the ad possibilities — will their sheer size of audience guarantee them success in signing up businesses?

The Followback Question: BeanCast alum, Rupal Parekh asked a question this week over on Ad Age about whether brand competitors should be doing more followbacks on Twitter, including following competitors. So let me pose her question to you, Jim: Should Steve Jobs be following Eric Schmidt? Isn’t the choice to followback more about how you use Twitter (push medium vs. engagement medium) or should all brands be actively following back their followers? Admittedly she’s right on the money when she says you only get a portion of the Twitter benefit when you’re just about push messaging, but isn’t it better to have some involvement rather than none at all? A recent study by ExactTarget (as reported in Adweek) shows that most Twitter users follow a brand to learn about future product announcements — so is there really all that much expectation for interaction anyway?

Scamming To Make A Point: Finally, the FTC took an unusual tact in helping consumers understand the dangers of online financial fraud. They set up a fake mortgage lender site to solicit people’s personal data for mortgage applications. Then when you went to apply, it says that you’ve been had and delivers you a stern talking to. So Joe, while this is very clever, is this kind of fear tactic helpful?

As always, the Beancast Marketing Podcast brings together thought-leaders in marketing from various disciplines (plus me). This week saw a pretty cool group:

Joseph Jaffe (@jaffejuice) (Chief Interrupter, Powered and Author of Flip the Funnel)

Jim Louderback (@jlouderb) (CEO, Revision 3)

Erik Proulx (@eproulx) (Founder, Please Feed the Animals and Producer of Lemonade)

…and me… Duane Forrester (@sportsguy) (Senior Program Manager of In-House SEO, MSN)

Listen via the following links ya’ll:

The BeanCast RSS feed:
Subscribe to The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

The show notes for your show:
Episode 116 of The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

The direct file link:
Listen to Episode 116 of The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

The iTunes link for The BeanCast:
Subscribe to The BeanCast Marketing Podcast on iTunes

The iTunes link for Fast Takes:
Subscribe to The BeanCast Fast Takes Marketing Podcast on iTunes

The Fast Takes RSS feed:
Subscribe to The BeanCast Fast Takes Marketing Podcast

The BeanCast AudioBoo Page:
Hear more BeanCast Marketing Talk at AudioBoo

Zune Link:
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…and check out Bob’s newest venture: Ad Age Outlook (linked to iTunes podcast)