TELEPRINTER: Mat Morrison, head of social media for Starcom MediaVest, is a fan of Oreo's "Power out? No problem" Superbowl tweet.
The US biscuit brand spent millions on an amusing television advertisement called "Cream or Cookie" for the all-important Superbowl commercial breaks, but garnered more plaudits for a simple tweet sent by @Oreo in the wake of a stadium blackout - "You can still dunk in the dark" was the tagline.
"Nobody was offended by that. It was relevant and it was newsy. Either people ignored it or they felt that it added to their experience," says the London-based Morrison.
Promoted posts
As creative teams don't always get it right, and spam merchants perennially hover, the advertising teams at social media companies such as Facebook have spent their energies setting up platforms that don't permit companies to annoy their users so much that they log out.
In effect, advertisers pay less when their promoted posts attract a high degree of user engagement.
"I know they haven't got it right yet, but they're trying to get advertisers to add value," says Morrison. "Facebook is trying to create ads that are a good experience."
One Facebook rule - a limit on the amount of text in images used in advertising to 20 per cent of the image - strives to ensure news feed advertisements conform to "native formats" considered less off-putting.
"I'd like to think we're all respectable and responsible, but we're not," says Morrison of advertisers.
Morrison is one of the social media experts speaking at next Wednesday's Measurement.ie conference, which takes place at the Clyde Court Hotel in Dublin. The conference is not designed for social media beginners, with organisers Mulley Communications warning that "we've moved beyond 'this is a Facebook business page' slides and case studies about Twitter hashtags".
'Free beer'
Morrison says clients are beginning to realise that tackling social media properly means more than just amassing likes and fans - and that this means investing.
"The clients who are investing are beginning to realise that it's not a land of free beer," he adds.
