Shifting to new media advertising may have greater social implications, particularly with social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, that use integrated marketing in ways not necessarily positive for consumers. Facebook can now report on users’ purchases that take place outside of the Facebook network through a new advertising tool called Social Ads. Social Ads expose people’s purchases on Facebook that they did not know would be exposed. This type of exposure is potentially threatening to Facebook users because as their social networks expand to include employers, coworkers, and friends of friends etc, they do not wish for their personal information to be compromised on the Internet for the benefit of marketers. For example, a sorority girl might not want others to know that they ordered $50 worth of cookies and brownies from Insomnia Cookies at 3 a.m. And a professor might want to keep it secret that he purchased the latest Gossip Girl novel from Amazon.
Whereas Facebook allows personal information to make its way into social conversation online, MySpace uses “hyper-targeted banner” ads through high-tech software that allows advertisers to purchase ad space on MySpace. Marketers can then target users according to the interests they find on MySpace user profiles. These banners are less complex and less risky than Facebook’s Social Ads because users’ personal information is not broadcasted beyond the marketers for all to see.
Here MySpace founders discuss the way in which the online networking site customizes its ads for users based on their individual profiles.
Shields, M. (2007). Advertising to get more social. MediaWeek, 17(4), 4-5.
Logic+Emotion Blog
Riley, D. (2007). MySpace to announce self-serve hyper targeted advertising network. TechCrunch Weblog.
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