The WSJ is reporting that General Motors is planning to stop advertising on Facebook after deciding that paying for ads on the social network has little impact on consumers when it comes to car purchases.

That is a significant blow to Facebook as it prepares for its IPO on Friday. Yesterday Facebook increased the planned price range for its stock to $34 to $38 per share amid growing investor excitement. The new price will see it raise about $12.8bn and values Facebook as high as $104bn, but without big advertisers that figure could quickly fall. Read More »

UPDATED This is what Philip Gladman, Diageo’s Western Europe white spirits marketing director, said yesterday while speaking at ISBA annual conference. His argument was that, yes, “size matters” and that unless brands could attract one million plus followers they should abandon social networks.

It is when you read statements like that you really understand that there are people out there, many in senior positions, who really don’t get it. Read More »

The Wall Street Journal does some future gazing looking at a possible future Twitter IPO, which most seem to agree is at least a year away if not further distant.

Twitter is right at the start of the process of getting advertisers on board as it expands its Promoted Ad programme, only just expanding to mobile, and while there are many experimenting the challenge is cracking the likes of global businesses like consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, which in a recent $150m detergent launch did not consider Twitter as part of its vast campaign spend. Read More »

Procter & Gamble has launched six new Facebook stores for its  Tide, Gillette, Olay, Gain, CoverGirl, Luvs and Febreze brands.

It follows the launch of a pilot store last year selling a mix of 29 P&G products, which it did in association with Amazon. Interesting move, but you have to wonder why it hasn’t tweaked its offer on Facebook to have some point of difference for fans. Read More »

Twitter users now send more than 140 million Tweets a day. With more than 20% of the tweets being related to products and/or brands, this means that every day 28 million tweets potentially concern your brand or company. The microblogging sphere has undeniably become a worthwhile place for listening to customers and potentially influencing perceptions, attitudes and behaviors by engaging into their conversations.

The relevant question has therefore moved from if marketers should get involved to how they should deal with it. Not only Twitter, but social media in general poses novel challenges to brand building and management. Basically it comes down to the fact that control is handed over to consumers. Read More »

According to the latest comScore figures Facebook is dominating the US display market with a 23% share and that domination, as it pushes towards one billion users, is only going to grow.

Facebook had more than double the share of impressions of Yahoo! at number two and almost five times as many as third placed Microsoft with top ten advertisers including AT&T, GM, Walt Disneyand Procter & Gamble. Read More »

This is an interesting one. Media buyer Starcom MediaVest is said to have struck a deal with a Hollywood content firm that will see it hook up its clients with a variety of websites and content in an agreement  that could be worth more than $100m.

Read More »

A Bloomberg report says that marketers  are flocking to Facebook with its biggest advertisers boosting their spending by at least 10-fold in the past year with some increasing spend by as much as 20-fold or more. Read More »

Anyone that uses social media or works in the digital space will have been hard pushed to miss the Old Spice Guy. A textbook example of an original idea that works across a variety of channels (adapted seamlessly to each medium), that has got everyone talking, and an assortment of ad and digital marketing execs feeling nearly as smug as the Old Spice Guy himself. Read More »

P&G’s marketing boss claimed that the scale of anti-pampers complaints made by parents concerned that Pampers nappies were giving their babies rashes was exaggerated because of the viral impact of Facebook. Read More »