(Promo) Social networks are great. Just ask the 40 million active users who have joined Facebook since its launch in 2004. And advertisers have also felt their allure.
Marketing research firm eMarketer estimates U.S. social network ad revenue will hit $900 million this year, with three-quarters of that spent on the two largest, MySpace and Facebook.
But social nets still pose some confounding riddles for advertisers who want to use them to convey messages about brands or promotions. There's the question of message visibility, for example. While users spend much more time on social network sites than they do on the average run-of-the-mill Web site, they're not necessarily looking at ad content. Ads may actually be much less visible on MySpace or Facebook pages than they are in other online content.
And social networks also present a demographic problem. While their membership rolls are becoming increasingly adult, the fact remains that about two-thirds of the registrants on the fastest-growing net, Facebook, are still college-age or younger, with student-sized disposable incomes. That's fine if you're selling ringtones, but a lot less compelling if you're marketing actual diamond rings.
So when Remy Martin went looking for a social vehicle to drive sales of its luxury brand Louis XIII cognac — aged between 40 and 100 years and priced between $1,500 and $1,800 a bottle — it set its sights a little higher. The company, along with agency MEC Interaction, has launched a three-month advertising and promotional campaign on the elite invitation-only social network aSmallWorld.
"We've marketed the brand in print channels that suited the target audience, such as Cigar Aficionado magazine," says Dana Nicholas, brand manager for Remy Martin. "Obviously everyone's expanding onto the Web these days, so we thought this would be the right step from both a media and a partnership perspective."
Founded three years ago in relative secrecy by former investment banker Erik Wachtmeister, aSmallWorld set itself up as the social network for big-time social influencers — the trendsetters who already have huge personal networks and simply want a place to swap high-level contacts. Nicknamed "Snobster" early on (a reference to one-time networking power Friendster), the site's bland home page at www.aSmallWorld.net stresses that it targets "those who already have strong connections with one another."
