August 16th, 2006
Why Advertise For Free on MySpace When You Can Pay News Corp Instead?
Flush with confidence after closing a $900 million deal with Google, MySpace is taking on its next challenge — convincing advertisers who have put up brand and product pages on MySpace for free that they should pay for “their space” instead:
Now, advertisers say the company is stepping up its efforts to convince big clients using MySpace’s free Web pages, known as profiles, to become paying customers as well.
“MySpace has started to reach out to companies that are setting up commercial pages on the site, encouraging them to reach some kind of financial agreement and forgo the free ride,” says Jeff Lanctot of aQuantive’s Avenue A|Razorfish online advertising agency. “While this could include paying to have the page up, I think buying an ad package to support the commercial page is also a reasonable solution.”
For example, this Wendy’s Smart Square page has 82,025 “friends” on MySpace (you’ve got to love the “About Me”).
I don’t know whether Wendy’s pays already for this page, but if they do, you have to wonder why. And if they don’t, you can’t envy the sales rep who has to call them up and convince them to pay. And what if Wendy’s won’t pay? Will MySpace have to tear down the page? That would be a great advertiser relations program — policing for unpaid commercial pages and tearing them down. You can imagine the trade press headlines.
Google obviously thinks it can effectively monetize MySpace — and I think it would be far more interesting to watch and learn from how MySpace succeeds than to watch it fail (despite the inevitable morbid train wreck fascination). But when I read things like “encouraging [advertisers] to reach some kind of financial agreement and forgo the free ride,” I really can’t help but continue to wonder.
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[…] Hat tip to Scott Karp at Publishing2. […]
l’aient pas fait avant. Si les marques veulent rester près des consommateurs, ils doivent garder leurs pages Myspace et donc payer. Malgré tout, peut-être que cela changera la donne dans la relation entre les consommateurs et les marques. Lire la note de Scott Karp et l’article de thestreet.com [IMG Headseth] Le nouveau mot préféré de Seth Godin est Awkward : ” The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the
[…] Why Advertise For Free on MySpace When You Can Pay News Corp Instead? […]
The Politically Incorrect AlphabetFailure to FailA False Sense of Insecurity [PDF]50 COMMON INTERVIEW Q&AEverything Is Media: The Online Retailer EditionBrands Will Have a Tough Time on YouTube10 things you should be monitoringWhy Advertise For Free on MySpace When You Can Pay News Corp Instead?
[…] I’ve written before about the challenge MySpace faces in getting companies to pay for what individuals can get for free, i.e. a MySpace page. But really all of media — including the newly adopted software industry — faces the same problem. In fact, small businesses connecting with customers directly sounds like a challenge to Google as well. […]
he’s talked several times