Myspace suspending some categories of performance advertising? March 29, 2009
Posted by jeremyliew in advertising, myspace, performance.trackback
PlentyOfFish claims that MySpace is suspending all dating and diet campaigns:
Apparently they got an email saying:
I have a bit of news about your campaign. Rupert Murdoch has decided to put all dating & dieting campaigns on MySpace on hold for a few days. They are discussing about dating creatives currently and planning to come up with a set of standards for them. I wanted to notify you and let you know that the campaign will be halted today and I will keep you updated as soon as I hear some news. I apologize for the inconvenience
Dating, Diet and Mobile comprise the three biggest categories of performance based advertising on social networks, so two of the big three are affected. If this suspension continues it will likely have a measurable impact on MySpace’s revenues.
Presumably they are responding to Federal Trade Commission concerns about the many decepetive ads in these areas. The Commission particularly is now focusing on diet ads that use unlikely extreme examples (lose 30 pounds in one month!) without making it very clear that these results are not typical. Good publishers already have processes in place to screen these ads and insists on edits, so it’s likely MySpace will add some review and require edits to ads in these areas that dont comply with consumer protection law.