London School of Marketing hits back at Dentsu Aegis digital director following Facebook whitepaper criticism
The London School of Marketing has responded to criticism from Dentsu Aegis and Carat's digital director Jerry Daykin of a white paper released claiming that advertisers are disappointed in its platform, as “being unnecessarily defensive.”
Speaking after Daykin branded the white paper “irresponsible”, Jacques de Cock, faculty member of the London School of Marketing said that while they welcomed the debate, they did not feel the criticism was warranted.
“In essence our article stated that Facebook is evolving into a traditional advertising based platform away from one based on intimate dialogue and shared interests that was promised a few years ago.
“Strangely Jerry does not seem to disagree with our conclusion, but from his advertising and media background his unwavering defence of Facebook is perhaps to be expected,” stated de Cock who added that the school took “a more holistic view” of social media marketing having worked with corporate and marketing professionals for years.
“On that basis Facebook has fallen short as it has not created a more intimate dialogue with users, but has developed a highly targetable platform for advertising, although with much less engagement than the hype a few years ago led us to believe,” he continued.
“The amazing value it provided to advertisers at the start of the decade is also being slowly eroded, which is interestingly something that Jerry again agrees with us on.”
Focusing on the accusation of a lack of evidence within the paper, de Cock claimed that the views of the paper were substantiated through public information and revealed that marketing professionals who shared the view had also been spoken to about the topic in confidence.
Standing by its stance that Facebook was a disappointment to marketers, de Cock said: “Trying to criticise us without knowledge of our methods and access is not the most professional approach and we are disappointed that he felt the need to undermine his argument with those comments.”
He concluded that Facebook was likely to be protecting its users and their data, which lessened the expected experience for marketers, but described that strategy as “a very sensible approach” by the platform.
The full whitepaper can be read here.
Meanwhile, Facebook has outlined its plans to work with publishers to improve their programmatic advertising strategies.