Facebook vs. Google: The Fight for Advertising's Future

“Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms—rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this "social graph" to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire—rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now.”

The struggle between Facebook and Google represents some of the same challenges happening in the advertising industry now. Those with the belief that “data is everything” complain that advertising hasn’t yet worked in social spaces, mostly because click through rates are even more terrible than usual and banners are ignored.

Data strives to make things black and white. People make things nuanced and contradictory. But I think Facebook’s struggle should be a guide for many of us working in advertising, whether we’re technically advertising or not.

Those of us that really give a shit about understanding people, the ones who aren’t likely to buy into the massive new ads from the OPA, those that felt queasy about interstitials even if they did give a higher click through rate, aren’t anti-data. But that data should be used to support our missions, not create them.

A cold-hearted reliance on numbers alone can make you small-minded and myopic. It can lead you to take shortcuts in the name of trial. It can bundle you in short-term success, celebrating fixing the coffee maker in a sinking ship.

Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I would venture to guess that he didn’t mean that knowledge is unimportant, but simply a tool to inform and check our creativity, not one meant to dictate each following step.

As I’ve been saying of late. Balance is everything. Data can’t explain meaning. Nor does an insight or an uncovered behavior describe a person in whole. So keep the curiosity and fearlessness of your gut and the layered understanding that data can provide, both tempered by the knowledge the neither are absolute.

“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.” 

-David Ogilvy

Familiar, no?

(background photo via rabinal)