Unlike GM, Ford Is Still Bullish on Facebook Ads

While General Motors may halt Facebook advertising, according to a Wall Street Journal story today, Ford has a different attitude toward paid promotions on the social site.

Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford, told ClickZ late this afternoon that his Detroit brand is still bullish on pre-IPO Facebook. The automaker, with its 10.2 million likes across brands on the social site, he said, plans on “accelerating our efforts in Facebook and other social platforms.”

In an email exchange, Monty continued, “It’s all down to execution. We’ve found Facebook ads to be very effective when strategically combined with engagement, great content and innovative ways of storytelling, rather than treating them as a straight media buy.”

The social exec also lauded the idea of working directly with Facebook engineers to create “first-of-a-kind vehicle reveals, advertising, and innovative ways of sharing content.”

In March, Ford ran a large, unique ad unit on the Facebook logout page. People visiting the Facebook logout page were greeted with an image of the sleek 2013 Mustang, in black. It was a still of the video which could be played directly on the logout page. The large image was accompanied by the post, “Seen the latest Mustang spot? Watch now, then grab a Mustang badge.”

ClickZ reached out to Monty to see if his company was seeing results that jibe with GM’s. The latter, according to the Journal, has had a $10 million Facebook ads account. Based on unnamed sources, the publication reported that GM is stopping Facebook advertising. The article goes on to quote GM marketing exec Joel Ewanick, who said his brand “is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook.”