August 5, 2014 — When one of every six minutes spent online (one in five on mobile) is spent on just one outlet, and mothers are your most loyal users, you’ve got yourself a pretty good advertising pitch.
That’s how Facebook is getting “at least” $100 million a year over the next several years to run ads for a fish oil supplement on users’ news feeds. That, according to the New York Times, and months spent at a Facebook “publishing garage” in New York where Facebook’s ad team, with reams of data, test messages, and tens of thousands of ”like” responses, persuaded the makers of MegaRed, a “premium,” Arctic krill-derived version of fish oil, to go with the social media colossus.
It’s an another precedent-settting win for digital advertising, especially in the land of mobile. Even if processed fish oil, used by one in ten American households, may not be quite the miracle heart strengthener it’s cracked up to be.