Social Media Takes Center Stage At Cannes Ad Festival

25th Jun 2010 18:04

By Ruth Bender Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES PARIS (Dow Jones)--Advertising executives and clients gathered this week in the South of France all agreed on one thing: the key role of social media. The focal point this year's Cannes Lions Advertising Festival was the first-time appearance of Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive and founder of Facebook, after recent years characterized by the rising profile of digital giants Google Inc. (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). "Social media isn't just another channel. It's not just about Facebook, it's much bigger as it changes the relationship with the consumer, forcing us to change the whole mindset of our business," said Laura Klauberg, senior vice president for global media at consumer goods giant Unilever (UN, UL). Unilever, which this year is raising by at least 50% the amount of money its spends on digital advertising, is increasingly turning to social media to complements its more traditional TV or print ads, said Klauberg. Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) is also increasing the role of social media in its digital advertising strategy. "The moment I realized the huge potential of social media was when I joined Facebook two years ago," said Marc Pritchard, Chief Marketing Officer at P&G which also plans to increase its investment in social networking. According to eMarketer, social network advertising spending worldwide this year will rise 14% compared with last year to $2.54 billion. While still only a small share of an online ad market estimated at around $55 billion worldwide this year, it is one of the fastest growing segments within digital. "It's still new but it's evolving very fast," said Interpublic Group of Cos.'s (IPG) CEO Michael Roth. Around $1.3 billion is expected to be spent in the U.S., where almost 60% of all Internet users will likely use a social network at least once a month in 2010, according to the research. Among its attractions, marketers say social media allows them to get immediate feedback on their products to which they can quickly respond. It also represents great value, for example compared with expensive TV advertising. "If you have a great story to tell or a buzz to create, social media can propagate the story and get you multiples on your investment," said Darren Huston, Microsoft's vice president for consumer and online. As marketers become aware of the advantage of social networking and look to integrate it into the majority of their campaigns, agencies are employing more digital staff and putting in place specialized social media teams to try to unlock its potential. In Cannes, they were hoping to learn from people like Zuckerberg, who said the phase during which marketers and ad agencies only experimented with Facebook was over. "It's the kind of thing that people who are running real campaigns really want to be doing and need to be doing," he told an audience of creatives, agency CEOs and advertisers. Facebook has 500 million users globally, and is looking to expand to China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, the only four countries in which it isn't the leading social network, according to Zuckerberg. He said its future success is closely linked to the role of agencies and marketers. "We won't be able to do it without your help," he said. But agencies face the challenge of finding the right message to spread, while also avoiding privacy issues. "Simply having a Facebook presence for a brand means absolutely nothing," said Miles Young, CEO of WPP PLC (WPP.LN)-owned agency Ogilvy & Mather. "You can't control the entire conversation between consumers, but we're getting a lot better at monitoring it without getting into the whole privacy issue," said Jonathan Nelson, CEO of Omnicom Digital, part of ad giant Omnicom Group Inc (OMC). Facebook has become the epicenter of Internet privacy concerns. Zuckerberg has acknowledged past "mistakes" in terms of protecting users' privacy, and recent changes to its user interface were designed to make it clearer when people share information with the public. Zuckerberg said behaviors are changing and people become more comfortable sharing information on the internet. "As long as people have control of what they share, they're comfortable with that," he said. In a sign that the wider industry is also trying to tackle privacy concerns, groups representing online ad firms including Google and major marketers like U.S. telecoms giant AT&T Inc. (T) earlier this week said they are preparing to introduce technology that detects privacy abuses by companies that track web surfing habits. -By Ruth Bender, Dow Jones Newswires; +33 1 40 17 17 54; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 25, 2010 13:04 ET (17:04 GMT)