GM has continued using Facebook's free services, even launching this new app. Now it will try paid ads again.
General Motors has decided to ‘Friend” Facebook again after turning thumbs down on the wildly popular social network just prior to its flawed IPO last year.
For now, however, GM says it’s just testing opportunities and isn’t quite ready to click the “Like” button, waiting to see if Facebook really can help it sell more cars.
“Chevrolet is testing a number of mobile advertising solutions, including Facebook, as part of its ‘Find New Roads’ campaign,” said Chevrolet’s vice president of U.S. marketing Chris Perry. “Today, Chevrolet is launching an industry-first ‘mobile-only’ pilot campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic.”
Like most automakers, GM has had a high-profile presence on the world’s largest social network service, largely focusing on its ability to post free content that millions of fans, owners and potential buyers routinely check out. But last May, GM’s global marketing czar Joel Ewanick ordered the maker to pull an estimated $10 million annual budget, explaining that it didn’t be generating sufficient results.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, the negative message coming just days before Facebook’s ultimately flawed stock offering.
It was just one of a number of controversial moves – including the decision to sit out the 2013 Super Bowl — by Ewanick who himself was ousted several months later, apparently for transgressions in the way a major marketing partnership with European soccer giant Manchester United was handled.
In recent months, there have been a number of steps taken to reverse many of Ewanick’s key decisions. Just last month GM broke up an unusual alliance of two erstwhile ad agency rivals, dubbed Commonwealth, the ousted marketing chief had created for the Chevrolet brand.
(GM marketing in turmoil, Ewanick’s legacy largely erased. Click Here for that story.)
It has, meanwhile, been rumored for months that senior Facebook executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, have been lobbying GM to make a return.
“We are pleased to have them back as an advertiser on Facebook,” the service said in a statement, adding that, “We look forward to working even more closely with GM in the coming weeks and months.”
The test campaign comes as Facebook takes some significant new steps to try to boost the effectiveness of its advertising. That includes a new feature in which brands can pay to promote themselves in users’ news feeds. The social media giant has also been pushing new ways to deliver ads to users who access Facebook via mobile devices – which is already a significant portion of its traffic.
It’s the new mobile marketing features that the campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic is now testing. The maker is not disclosing the cost of the effort.
Facebook clearly is shifting focus to the mobile environment. This month, it launched a new service called Facebook Home that effectively makes the service the first thing many users will see on some new Android-based smartphones.
Whether these steps will work remains to be seen. Advertising industry strategists have routinely echoed former GM czar Ewanick’s concerns about the effectiveness of the service in pitching ads. But Facebook seems committed to stepping up its game enough to get General Motors to give it another try.