I’ve always said that companies are hiring way too many people to manage online advertising and that frankly, that media buyer are just lazy and many are a complete waste of money. Agreeing with me, the CEO of Procter & Gamble, the mega-brand company that owns, among other thigns, Old Sice, has decided to lay off 1,600 people in their marketing department. The reason? That they are a complete waste of money since much of their Facebook success has been based on free advertising.

 In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that the return on investment of the advertising, when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient. One example is our Old Spice campaign, where we had 1.8 billion free impressions and there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world. So while there may be pressure on advertising, particularly in the United States, for example, during the year of a presidential election, there are mitigating factors like the plethora of media available.

This is extremely interesting, because it basically points out that, unlike what Facebook would like you to think, that you don’t have to spend a single dollar on Facebook advertising to have a very successful Facebook campaign.  Much about online advertising is becoming less and less about how much you spend, but how creative you can be in spreading the message. This is something that any performance marketer knows, especially those who depend completely on organic traffic.

Of course, Facebook would rather you not know this. In light of their complete hatred of the performance marketing industry, and how they are even trying to prove that “likes” can be sued under CAN-SPAM, we have to wonder how they will feel about this news.

Still that being said, despite the free advertising, Old Spice can’t get away from the general opinion that it makes you smell like Old Men’s Feet.