The Facebook Roundup: Volume 5

If you haven’t seen the others then be sure to check out parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 to get up to speed.

As per usual…

Those that land in our “good” selection are ones which really bring forth best practices, creativity, and effectiveness. The “bad” are ones that had a possibility at potential but weren’t exactly making the cut. For the “worst”, and we mean no hard feelings to those at the bottom of the list, is that special feeling you get when your stomach doesn’t settle (that sudden lump in the back of your throat).

So let’s begin with Volume 5.

The Good

The winner for this week is Animoto which is a service where people can make videos for their business.

• The copy is straight forward in telling people what to expect and throwing in there that it’s easy (fair enough to draw some attention)
• The creative is very nice because it shows off the program and throws in the extras you’d expect when making the videos such as the camera and a notebook full of ideas
• Using the copy “Pro” places it in a good position because it makes it seem like a high-end product that’s actually rather inexpensive and easy-to-access even to the novice
• It tells you what you’ll import (photos and video clips) and says how long it takes (minute)
• The social reaction is good so it definitely has support from the community

Overall the ad is very appealing to the eyes and the value the business is trying to convey is straight forward. Everything about the ad flows together.

The Bad

Coming second this week and landing in our “bad” category is none other than McDonald’s which has decided to do something a little different for their recent campaigns…

• McD is already instantly recognizable so it has that going for it but the fact they decided to tackle the “pink slime” debate seems almost odd to see on your news feed.
• The image is nice and clever with the use of sesame seeds to form out a question mark but it then also makes you think “well, actually, what if there is something odd about that burger?”; people may look at the ad, see “pink slime”, see a questionable (no pun intended) burger and say “yup, I knew it”
• The URL does take people to informative videos but we wonder if it would have been better just to create a short video and use that as part of the promotion instead since FB is autoplaying videos
• The discussions, shares, and likes are definitely going for it so even if there’s anything perceived gross about it – McD is still gaining a lot of social interaction.

Overall it’s not the best but it’s certainly not the worst. It just feels a little odd to see the food giant tackling this topic through social in this way – they’re adding an extra step in the process of finding out about this whole debate instead of showing the behind-the-scenes up-front. This one is hard to classify because on another week it could have landed in the “good” but was simply not good enough compared to our winner for the week.

The Uhhh… Suck

Graphicstock lands at the bottom of our list for this week for very obvious reasons…

• The copy feels a little all over the place – it feels like it should either be solely focused on pushing the 7 day trial or touting the numerous graphics, vectors, and other elements that make up the service
• The “killer” in this ad is right there… that creative is ugly as hell and we have no idea what it’s supposed to be other than some kind of abstract clock but what really doesn’t make any sense. It looks like it was created by a child after five minutes in Photoshop which makes you wonder how much of that 250,000+ resources might be this kind of junk. Couldn’t they have chosen a better image?

Overall this is the perfect case of imagery done wrong. The service could be awesome for all that we know but it’s hard getting past that image.

Conclusion

What did we learn this week?

A. Continuity in the ad copy, creative, and flow really matters if you want the entire thing to feel like a complete experience; this completeness adds to the emotional connection and makes it easier to understand the benefits of what’s being offered.

B. It may be best to cut through the clever creative and just give the community a video or break it all down into a series of sponsored posts especially if there is something debatable about your product.

C. If you’re showing off your product at least choose the image that doesn’t look like a turd.

Seen any good, bad, or down-right ugly ads this week? Have thoughts about these ones? Share your feedback with a comment below.