3 ms·

I guess I'm just a cynic but my take away from this was "regular users of Facebook get so good at ignoring ads that you can literally put pictures of their own

I guess I'm just a cynic but my take away from this was "regular users of Facebook get so good at ignoring ads that you can literally put pictures of their own children in an ad and they'll still take forever to notice"

lftl 16y ago
One issue with this may be that for awhile FB let you use create ads that would pull from a user's and their friends' profile pictures. This led to some pretty amusing ads for dating services with people's signifcant other being protrayed as looking for love. Not sure if FB still lets advertisers do this, but it may signifcantly contribute to ad blindess for ads like this.
- Sukotto 16y ago
  hmm... so if you were a divorce lawyer you could run a "looking for love" ad using a picture of a loved one and a "need a divorce?" ad right underneath it. Evil, but possibly effective.
  - jgg 16y ago
    It's so evil that I'm wondering why nobody has done it yet.
  - riffer 16y ago
    Mega creepy ads may work for selling certain products and services, but nobody wants to trust a creepy lawyer
- benmathes 16y ago
  They don't let you use social information in your ad code anymore. There were a couple of facebook ad networks (ads on game pages, not facebook ads) that got hit by that.
  - idoh 16y ago
    This is true. Social ads got banned and mobile payment ads got really restricted. A lot of facebook ad networks not only got hit by that but got put out of business by those changes. Also, facebook is always tweaking what you can do on ads, business lines are always rising and falling on that platform.
glhaynes 16y ago
It'd be interesting to see, though, how much users notice ads that have pictures of people they know vs. how much they notice 'regular' ads that don't have familiar people in them: Facebook shows lots of pictures of friends' photos around the edges with reminders to "Get back in touch", etc. and so people have been trained to tune those out, too.
- hoprocker 16y ago
  Mashable.com uses your Facebook friends' pictures in their "Mashable on Facebook" advertisement (main page, right-hand side). It definitely draws my attention like a lightning bolt to see people I recognize out of the blue on random websites. I'd wager that there's a lot of primate-brain potential in this.
  - tienshiao 16y ago
    Mashable isn't responsible for that. Facebook is. When you view any sort of "group" on Facebook, Facebook will randomly (or maybe not so randomly) show one of your friends if your friends are in that "group". Quite effective and clever.

lftl 16y ago

One issue with this may be that for awhile FB let you use create ads that would pull from a user's and their friends' profile pictures. This led to some pretty amusing ads for dating services with people's signifcant other being protrayed as looking for love. Not sure if FB still lets advertisers do this, but it may signifcantly contribute to ad blindess for ads like this.

Sukotto 16y ago
hmm... so if you were a divorce lawyer you could run a "looking for love" ad using a picture of a loved one and a "need a divorce?" ad right underneath it. Evil, but possibly effective.
- jgg 16y ago
  It's so evil that I'm wondering why nobody has done it yet.
- riffer 16y ago
  Mega creepy ads may work for selling certain products and services, but nobody wants to trust a creepy lawyer
benmathes 16y ago
They don't let you use social information in your ad code anymore. There were a couple of facebook ad networks (ads on game pages, not facebook ads) that got hit by that.
- idoh 16y ago
  This is true. Social ads got banned and mobile payment ads got really restricted. A lot of facebook ad networks not only got hit by that but got put out of business by those changes. Also, facebook is always tweaking what you can do on ads, business lines are always rising and falling on that platform.

glhaynes 16y ago

It'd be interesting to see, though, how much users notice ads that have pictures of people they know vs. how much they notice 'regular' ads that don't have familiar people in them: Facebook shows lots of pictures of friends' photos around the edges with reminders to "Get back in touch", etc. and so people have been trained to tune those out, too.

hoprocker 16y ago
Mashable.com uses your Facebook friends' pictures in their "Mashable on Facebook" advertisement (main page, right-hand side). It definitely draws my attention like a lightning bolt to see people I recognize out of the blue on random websites. I'd wager that there's a lot of primate-brain potential in this.
- tienshiao 16y ago
  Mashable isn't responsible for that. Facebook is. When you view any sort of "group" on Facebook, Facebook will randomly (or maybe not so randomly) show one of your friends if your friends are in that "group". Quite effective and clever.