GM Says No More Facebook Ads For Now; Sure Signs That Big Data Is Growing Up

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

No “Like”, GM?

The Wall Street Journal reports that General Motors will stop advertising on Facebook. No “like”, GM? The WSJ says, “GM, started to re-evaluate its Facebook strategy earlier this year after its marketing team began to question the effectiveness of the ads. GM marketing executives (…) met with Facebook managers to address concerns about the site’s effectiveness and left unconvinced advertising on the website made sense…” Read more (subscription). The New York Times finds a variety of voices on what the move means including Ben Winkler, the chief digital officer at OMD, who said Facebook “did not provide advertisers with the amount of data and analytics that they want from the site.” Read it.

Growing Up For Big Data

Offering the “Big Data Analysis Maturity Curve” on ClickZ, IBM Netezza’s Brad Terrel says in an opinion piece that if you’re going to take advantage of “big [media-related] data,” you’re going to need – people! Terrell sees the talent shortage as significant: “Talented data scientists – individuals with a combination of data management expertise, analytics modeling knowledge, and business analysis skills – are so hard to find because many technologies needed to tame big data didn’t exist until recently. Most were invented within the past 10 years.” Read more.

Automating Marketing

In an interview with the Boston Globe, HubSpot marketing manager Jessica Meher says that her marketing automation company began to seriously consider “adding e-mail marketing services last year after it purchased Cambridge start-up Performable, which had been developing analytical tools to measure the effectiveness of online campaigns.” The Globe adds, “One of the team’s first projects…was to develop an e-mail marketing platform that was tightly integrated with the rest of HubSpot’s offerings. ‘We weren’t interested in e-mail marketing as a silo,’ she said.” Read more.

TV Versus Online Video Eyeballs

Sure consumers are spending more time online than ever before, but did you know… that the viewing of television programming grew a whopping 28% in the last year “with consumers citing factors such as convenience and the appeal and variety of programming as their top factors for the increase. Two-thirds of consumers said HDTVs were their primary viewing devices, though other devices such as laptops (62%), desktops (55%), smartphones (33%) and tablets (17%) were gaining in popularity.” Read more. So maybe consumers don’t need the TV, but they need the TV content.

Media Tech Planner

Mediasmith CEO David Smith tells Digiday’s Jack Marshall that given the ecosystem complexity, his digital agency has created a new role called the media technology planner. “Marshall writes, ‘Mediasmith reached a tipping point in 2011. We now see more tech companies than media publishers to get our jobs done,’ said Smith, revealing that his agency’s current technology stack incorporates the services of over 40 vendors.” Read more.

You’re Hired!

Former DoubleVerify exec Eoin Townsend takes a seat at the MediaMath C-level table as he becomes the company’s Chief Strategy Officer where he will be “leading Strategy as well as Business, Corporate and Partner/Publisher Development.” See the updated “Management” page.

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