[sandieman]

People don't watch television to watch commercials.

People don't drive on the freeway to see billboards.

This argument that advertising must be like google "advertise people looking for things" is not the value Facebook is offering advertisers. It's offering something significantly different and in many ways bigger. "Advertise people when not looking for things"

[netcan]

I've discussed this a few times with people and I think I disagree, sort of. People don't watch television to watch commercials but strange as it seems that ad for fairy dishwashing liquid is very natural to what TV does. TV makes culture, especially low brow culture. It decides what is popular, trend, famous, etc.

The laundry detergent on TV is the famous laundry detergent, just like the actor on TV is the famous one. Branding is really trying to turn the thing you're selling into a cultural icon.

[sandieman]

The examples to counter this are beyond just television.. people don't goto airports to get advertised with IBM or barracuda advertising.

People don't goto football games to watch the Goodyear blimp.

People never ask to be advertised to but..,

Where people go in mass, advertisers want to reach them.

There is no place people go consistently more than Facebook and they have the best mechanism for targeting so many niche sets of users.

And to argue facebook isn't culturally relevant vs TV. I'm a little bit lost with that one. Memes and videos everyone must watch are a cultural phenomenon heavily driven by Facebook.

The fact that Facebook advertising targets you so well (or not) is something that is a common conversation just like talking about the annoying (or not) commercials that exist on TV.

[emkemp]

"People don't watch television to watch commercials."

The Super Bowl is a notable exception.

[notastartup]

>It's offering something significantly different and in many ways bigger.

I think that is debatable. Sure, BMW could target young Asian kids with rich parents on facebook, but there's already a rather big demographic targetting with the likes of Youtube and Google's data on a user. Google's reach of your demographic and browsing history paints a far more clearer picture for a potential advertiser, as you are more likely to notice an ad campaign when it's displayed before a youtube video or a blog you read. Facebook would be great for someone showing off their purchase not necessarily for buying products through poorly placed ads that your brain is trained to ignore.