New York Times: “When Facebook convinces advertisers to stage Super Bowl-sized entertainment every day, its future will be assured.”

The New York Times picked up the story about Proctor & Gamble’s relationship with Facebook. As I had discussed last month, Ted McConnell, general manager of interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble, told attendees at a talk hosted by Cincinnati’s Digital Hub Initiative that he “really [doesn’t] want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook.”

The reason was simple: he knew that, by in large, social networks weren’t the type of websites where marketers should be. He asked a salient rhetorical question: “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”

It’s a question I’ve been asking for years.

In his article, The New York Times’ Randall Stross digs deeper into P&G’s relationship with Facebook. Both P&G and Facebook were not very forthcoming when it came to the details and P&G only wanted to discuss one campaign: a Crest Whitestrips initiative that encouraged Facebook users to become “fans” of Crest Whitestrips. How exciting.

The result: 14,000 “fans.” As Stross discovers, “becoming a ‘fan’ required nothing more than a single click.” And there’s no way to tell if “fans” are “active” – Facebook doesn’t reveal that information publicly. Stross notes the inconvenient truth that “without endless investment, these sorts of promotions sputter out.”

He goes on:

One could argue…that with the additional enticements that Crest provided — thousands of free movie screenings, as well as sponsored Def Jam concerts — a brand of hemorrhoid cream could have attracted a similar number of nominal “fans.”

Bingo!

Interestingly, Stross was directed to P&G’s “2X Ultra Tide” page on Facebook – the same one that prompted me to write a post in February 2008 entitled “Note to Tide: Detergent is Detergent.”

Stross observes the same thing that I did: nothing is going on. It’s a ghost town. It’s dead.

Or, perhaps, more aptly put, it’s “stillborn.”

That’s the word research firm IDC used to describe the notion that advertising on social networks might be more effective than behavioral targeting (which, incidentally, is of questionable effectiveness itself). According to IDC, of US Internet users on social networks “only 3% would allow publishers to use contact information for advertising.” So much for social ads. Who woulda thunk that users wouldn’t want to become unpaid advertising shills? Okay, excluding bloggers who whore themselves out.

Of course, the questionable potential of social networks like Facebook as advertising platforms has been obvious for some time.

A year ago I explained in very simple terms why social networks would matter far less to marketers than you (and they) might have expected them to.

My explanation can be summed up in two sentences:

…if I’m more focused on viewing my friend’s party pictures from Tijuana and sending a message to a girl who wants me to chat with her on her web cam, the chances that I’m going to be receptive to the advertising MySpace serves up to me is pretty slim. And that’s where social networks face their biggest challenge: they are platforms for social interaction and when you’re busy socializing, you’re less likely to be interested by advertising.

And by golly, IDG actually spent money to research the obvious. It reports:

There are four major reasons why consumers use SNS: to connect and communicate; in response to peer-pressure; for entertainment; and for work-related purposes. Advertising does not factor into consumer motivations.

Huh? Consumers don’t use Facebook because they want to develop personal relationships with friendly brands such as Tampax and K-Y Jelly? I thought everyone wanted to have a conversation with a tampon or a lubricant. Hey, they’re good friends. After all, tampons stick by their friends through thick and thin. Literally. And lubricants are always there to make sure a good time doesn’t go south. Well, good times always head south but you know what I mean.

Sarcasm aside, if you pay any attention to the twats who promote social media, you might have been lured into believing that consumers wanted to engage in conversations with corporations.

Forrester Research says that social network advertising is the best thing since sliced bread. Guy Kawasaki says Twitter is the most powerful branding medium since television. And Mark Zuckerberg says that media changes every 100 years and he just so happens to be media’s Che Guevara.

Yeah. They’ve been jerking you off. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

The reality is that the people who continue to believe that social networks and social media are some sort of marketing panacea are in denial because most of them have a vested financial interest in it becoming one. Yet they’re looking for the marketing equivalent of the Grand Unified Theory and trust me, there’s not a single Albert Einstein in the “social media community.”

I don’t believe in much but I do believe in common sense and money. And common sense tells you to follow the money. If something works, it immediately makes sense because it will inevitably make dollars. You can give yourself a hernia trying to convince yourself that something that clearly isn’t working will start working tomorrow or the next day but going through life broke and with rectal hernia is no way to live.

The evidence is in. From the smallest of advertisers to the largest of advertisers, the only thing social media is good for is a handful of $500 K-Mart gift cards.

It’s time to move along folks. Advertisers aren’t going to stage Super Bowl-sized entertainment every day just so that somebody will click a button on Facebook to become a “fan” of Preparation H. At least when you spend ~$2.5 million for each 30 second Super Bowl ad, you know that you’ll have a nice party in a luxury suite and there will be attractive women there. What do you get with a Facebook ad campaign? A few fans, no clicks and a sinking feeling that not only is Mark Zuckerberg not your friend, but that he may not be entirely human either.

Fortunately, there’s a New Deal coming. If things didn’t work out for you as a self-appointed expert marketer on the Information Superhighway, you’ll probably be able to find a job repaving a real highway. Make yourself useful: have all the “conversations” you want while getting rid of those potholes. Next time I visit the United States I don’t want to feel like I’m on a roller coaster ride when I’m driving down your streets.

Now that’s a social “campaign” I can believe in.