Words by Jamie Tolentino-Deludet
Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde hosts Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg for a conversation around consumers particularly on their changing behavior on mobile, digital’s role in society, and Facebook’s focus in 2019.
We need to market to people AGAINST stereotypes @SherylSandberg
talks to @carolinehydetv on the importance of breaking down stereotypes in advertisingSponsorCatch up with insights from the festival on #CannesLions TV: https://t.co/rqNlixJ59E pic.twitter.com/ZG0tk30suy
— Cannes Lions (@Cannes_Lions) June 19, 2019
Sheryl Sandberg shares that people see more marketing messages than they see all other media, so we should market against stereotypes rather than to stereotypes. Lean In helped with breaking the stereotype by helping organizing the Glass Lion Award. Diversity also has a commercial impetus because when you market against stereotypes, you increase sales by 26%. If you want to show that girls can be strong and boys can be emotional, then you change the world.
60% of male managers are afraid of having a meeting with a woman and this is a problem because promotions happen when you get informal time with senior people. Sheryl’s advice is to group dinners with a mixed group of people so that you can be inclusive and fair to everyone.
Facebook is helping advertisers make the shift to share in a private way similar to town hall or one to one messaging via Messenger. This means that messaging is going to become really important. People believe that you cannot do targeted advertising without protecting privacy, but you can. Targeted advertising can help your business, especially small companies so that you can get the right return for your dollar, euro, pound, etc.
Data and privacy questions from @CarolineHydeTV…
“You can do targetted advertising AND protect a users privacy”, says @Facebook‘s @SherylSandberg “we need to do better at explaining that”
Catch up with exclusive insights from #CannesLions TV: https://t.co/rqNlixJ59E pic.twitter.com/W7DD15aAFb
— Cannes Lions (@Cannes_Lions) June 19, 2019
For example, on Facebook and Instagram, as a dog business owner, you can just show ads to dog owners. The data that the dog business owner will get contains no personal data, but just aggregated segments and statistics. Facebook admits that they do need to do a better job at explaining their business model so that people are not creeped out. Broadly, ads are shown based on who you are following and who your friends are.
Regarding personal data, Facebook is taking the GDPR guidelines and trying to build it into their model, sharing the minimum data required to enable their business model to run. On the topic of fraud, Facebook worked with experts from 28 countries and are taking down 1 million fake accounts a day. New rules need to be written for the internet, ala GDPR, and Facebook is helping to make that happen. Facebook built a tool for honest ads to see who is paying for your ads but unfortunately the Honest Ads Bill didn’t pass in the US.
What is @Facebook doing to enable transparency on ads? @SherylSandberg explains how Facebook is working with Governments
Catch up on demand with #CannesLions TV: https://t.co/5K4wsbXDaZ pic.twitter.com/NGRErP4D9D
— Cannes Lions (@Cannes_Lions) June 19, 2019
People are appropriately worried about Chinese companies who have similar services as Facebook and that needs to be taken into account. Nick Clegg serves as a loud voice for remembering that the world is global because 85% of Facebook’s users are outside the US and Canada.
Regarding Facebook’s Libra announcement, the association is based in Geneva with 27 partners, NGOs and nonprofits to create a global cryptocurrency that is more inclusive. However, they are still far from launching.
Finally, Sheryl says that you grow from things that are hard. Running Facebook is hard, but they are rolling up their sleeves and being honest about where the problems are and where to improve.
One thing that they are still working to improve is the amount of misinformation on the site. Facebook has third party verifications, and massively decreases distribution if classified as such so only 20% of people would see it. They do not take it down because Facebook believes in fighting bad information with good information. What keeps Sheryl going is that she feels a responsibility to solve problems at Facebook and truly believes in the platform.
