“We want to clarify that we are not working with any agency to create paid ads on our mobile platform.”

Gelb clarified further:

“I would like to clarify a statement I made in an interview yesterday regarding Facebook. Razorfish is NOT working with Facebook on any mobile media ad buying. Rather, in the interview I was referring to rich media featured stories, not paid ads.”

So, I guess we’re free top continue speculation on when Facebook actually will start offering mobile ads. It’s still expected top be the near future.

Original Article: We’ve been hearing for a couple months now that Facebook would soon be launching mobile ads. And why not? Frankly, it’s astonishing that the company has not already put them out there.

News comes today, however, that the company is already test piloting some mobile ads, and rich ones, possibly with animation, at that. DigiDay spoke with Razorfish’s Paul Gelb, who says that Razorfish is “currently engaged in pilot programs for ‘mobile and cross-platform rich-media ads”.

DigiDay’s Jack Marshall reports:

It remains unclear on what basis the ads will be sold, but Gelb implied advertisers will be able to reach users across all devices with a single buy. Judging by Facebook’s desktop ad formats, it’s likely they’ll be disseminated across users’ networks as they interact with them.

The units themselves, meanwhile, will offer similar functionalities to other mobile rich-media ad providers such as Medialets and Crisp Media, Gelb suggested. Ads powered by those companies typically feature interactive elements and animations, video content, location-based features and various calls to action such as tap-to-call and tap-to-coupon.

Not exactly your standard Facebook ads, but there’s no reason to think those won’t be coming along in the near future as well.

Rising mobile use, without ads on Facebook’s mobile ads, is one of the things Facebook listed in its “Risk Factors” section in its IPO filing. What better way to avert such a risk, than plastering ads onto the mobile experience(s).

I’d expect to see plenty of sponsored stories showing up in the mobile mix as well.

Ads have done little to push Facebook users away so far. I doubt mobile ads will do much either.

Facebook has 845 million monthly active users. 425 million of them use Facebook mobile products. Facebook also announced $3.7 billion annual revenue.

The data is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the US, about half male and half female. They cover four major age groups and 10 major cities.

"To avoid duplicating the more broad-based work of Pew, Forrester, and other research firms, our goal was to survey what we call "connected consumers,’" Razorfish explains. These connected consumers have broadband access, have spent at least $150 online in the past six months, have visited a "community site" (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Yelp, etc.), and have consumed or created some form of digital media like photos, videos, music, or news.

"Based on previous Razorfish consumer research, we have found that these ‘connected consumers’ roughly mirror the U.S. population with broadband access. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet connection, up from only 55% in 2008. This translates to roughly 200 million people, based on a July 2009 population estimate from the CIA World Factbook (total population 307,212,123, July 2009 estimate)."

In other words, pay attention to the results. You can find them all here. I wanted to highlight a few of the particularly interesting ones here, which pertain to social media use. They paint a pretty good picture of what consumers are looking for from brands on social networks (although these are certainly not the limits of what companies can do with them).

Beyond the data in the above graphs, another point worth mentioning derived from the research is that for Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, those who follow brands are mostly looking for exclusive deals or offers. This mentality will likely increase moving forward as deals get more personalized as well.

Like Jeremiah Owyang recently discussed with WebProNews, sites can connect with existing networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (think Facebook Connect and similar services), and in the future, people may be able to log-in to corporate sites with their Facebook (or whatever) account, which will bring up their profile information for companies to serve personalized content (or perhaps personalized deals).

The point is, consumers are clearly more than willing to interact with brands through social media, and this will likely become increasingly true as social networks themselves gain more users. It’s not only about pushing your offers out there and hoping people bite. People are becoming friends/fans of brands hoping you do give them special offers.

Interesting new marketing opportunities are going to continue to present themselves moving forward as networks get more advanced and more brands figure out new ways to use them.

Related Articles:

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

This move has been quite some time in coming; even in the middle of 2008, there were reports that Microsoft was trying to unload Razorfish.  Then, at the end of June 2009, Maurice Levy, the CEO of Publicis, started to talk about opportunities and acquisitions.

Now, the two parties have settled on a mixture of cash and Publicis Groupe treasury shares worth $530 million, along with a five-year strategic alliance agreement with the potential to redirect some more money.

According to a statement, "The agreement helps Publicis Groupe media clients by allowing their agencies to purchase display and search advertising from Microsoft over the five-year term of the agreement on favorable terms, in exchange for certain minimum guaranteed aggregate purchase levels."

Razorfish’s clients include big companies like Best Buy, Ford, and McDonald’s, so Bing may see some impressive new advertisers as a result.

In the Internet marketing press it depends on who you listen to and / or trust that will help you make your very own prediction. Publicis ending up with Razorfish has been favored by the folks at paidContent and they were willing to pay handsomely for the company although not quite the $800 million that it was supposed to merit. That may not be the case any longer. WPP is in the game as well but that is another that falls under the category of “to be determined”

Although three sources told paidContent that WPP had a cordial meeting with Microsoft execs about what it would it take to move Razorfish out of the Redmond software company’s orbit, a deal appears to be in doubt.

Several executives speculated it was a matter of demonstrating who wants Razorfish more, and so far, Publicis has gone to greater lengths to show its desire. For one thing, Publicis executives have indicated that they would be willing to pay upwards of $700 million to acquire Razorfish, while WPP has balked at paying more than $600 million.

Other sources including Business Insider have stated that Publicis’ interest is on the retreat (that was on August 4th). On the 6th both Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal was likely to happen. Since none of the companies seem to be actually saying anything rather than this being a case of “he said, she said” between companies it’s one of “we said, they said” amongst various industry insiders.

If it were to happen, the deal is said to be slated for September but who the heck knows. Right now, it seems like there is much ado about nothing since Microsoft is supposedly talking to others as well. Comparatively this must seem like a vacation for Microsoft staffers following the Yahoo “Boatloads of Fun” event. Whether this is all a negotiation ploy or not matters most to Razorfish employees who are probably wondering what the future holds for them. Let’s face it, they’re the ones that will feel any impact the quickest and just how much impact will be felt depends greatly on who eventually walks away with the company.

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For the report, Razorfish surveyed 1,000 consumers who reported both social media and ecommerce activity with the goal to find out how social media influences purchasing decisions. Overall, 80 percent were members of at least one social network and 40 percent were active in two.

"Social media has quickly become one of the most talked-about topics in marketing. We didn’t want this report to just be more of the same, so instead we took a different, more scientific approach to evaluating this phenomena and measuring its effects," said Shiv Singh, VP and Global Social Media Lead at Razorfish.

"Today, a brand’s actions speak louder than its words and pushing out messages is no longer enough to excite and engage consumers."

The report indicates brands must identify who influences perception including offline peers, blogs and reviews. Consumers are more likely to engage with brands with credible voices. Brands using social media need to be personal and authentic and stay away from sounding like an advertisement.

Brands who provide value to consumers gain customer loyalty. Of those surveyed, 57 percent said they visited brand fan pages at least every few weeks or months, indicating consumers are not forgetting about them. If a brand provides current, relevant content, consumers will be more likely to engage with it.

Since then, you could argue that about the only good thing to come out of that particular acquisition was the re-branding from the awkward "Avenue A | Razorfish" to the more practical Razorfish. Really, what did Microsoft want with an ad agency anyway?

Well, the FT has yet another rumor–in a long line of rumors–that Microsoft plans to sell off Razorfish.

Microsoft has appointed Morgan Stanley to find a potential buyer for Razorfish, its digital agency…In August, two years after the aQuantive deal, more favourable tax implications will provide an opportunity for Microsoft to sell an asset some view as a conflict of interest with Microsoft Advertising, which sells technology to rival agencies.

So far French marketing firm Publicis appears to be the front runner–with barely a mention that WPP may once again be interested.

So what’s Razorfish worth? Back in 2008, AdAge slapped a $800 million valuation on the agency, but we’re in a totally different economic climate right now, so FT’s $600m-$700m might be more realistic. But, really, that’s just a very small drop in an insanely large Microsoft bucket. Why bother either selling?

Well, that brings us back to the conflict of interest issue again. Microsoft has a renewed focus on its own online advertising sales, and so the time might be right to get rid of any distractions.

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French marketing company Publicis Groupe, which is planning more acquisitions focused in online advertising, is thought to be a possible buyer of Razorfish, according to the Financial Times.

Maurice Levy

Microsoft purchased the agency, formerly called Avenue A Razorfish, as part of its $6 billion takeover of aQuantive in 2007.

Analyst estimate the value of Razorfish at $600 million to $700 million, based on sales of about $400 million last year and profit margins of similar businesses of 12 to 13 percent.

Some see owning Razorfish as a conflict of interest with Microsoft Advertising, which sells technology to competing digital agencies.

Razorfish, based in Seattle, is one of the largest digital agencies, with more than 2,000 employees. Its clients include Dell, Disney and McDonalds.

Publicis chief executive, Maurice Levy, said money from a refinancing this month could be used for acquisitions, specifically focused in digital and emerging markets, which are proving more resilient than traditional advertising in the U.S. and Europe.

"There are some opportunities" for acquisitions, Levy said. He declined to comment if Publicis would be interested in acquiring Razorfish.

Other agencies that could be interested in Razorfish include Omnicom and WPP, who are also moving more of their marketing budgets into digital.

Digital moms have moved beyond email and search, and are now active users of Web 2.0 technologies. The majority of moms are using social networks (65%) and text messaging (56%). More than half are also gamers, with 52 percent playing games online or via a console.

Moms with children 12 and older are motivated to adopt new technologies. Digital moms of children 12 and older compared with moms with children under 12, are more likely to watch online video (40% VS. 34%), game (57% VS. 51%), read online consumer reviews (38% VS. 30%), and watch or listen to podcasts (13% VS. 9%).

TV still has the most impact on creating initial awareness for a product (31%), social channels such as online reviews, blogs and social network sites are influential in the researching stage (29%).

"With the rise of social networking, moms are becoming less dependent on traditional media and brand advertising to inform purchase decisions," said Laura Fortner, SVP of marketing and insights at CafeMom.

"Marketers can extend brand engagement by interacting with moms in their space and leveraging their influence within their social networks."

And of those people, 76% didn’t mind seeing ads when they logged in to social media sites including Facebook and MySpace. This percentage is surprisingly large, perhaps so much so that this response is what prompted Razorfish to conclude:

Content, in our view, will become advertising.

Well, I suppose that’s a better outlook than advertising will become content.

The Razorfish study also found that, according to ClickZ:

In the report the agency explains it was surprised to find 91 percent of respondents use Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com as their Internet homepages. Over 60 percent of these people have customized their homepages with content feeds and widgets. The report notes 55 percent said they use widgets with some frequency and 62 percent use them on sites such as Facebook and iGoogle.

The researchers found that, while those who view online videos don’t mind the presence of advertising, they prefer banners and “newer, emerging forms of video” ads including tickers and interstitials to pre-roll video ads.

If, as Razorfish predicts, content and advertising will merge, some brands are already gearing up for that. 32% of online retailers based in the US have a presence on Facebook, 27% on MySpace and 26% on YouTube, according to a study by Internet Retailer and Vovici (via).

As of September, in a study of 100 brands by Rosetta, 59 had Facebook Pages, too. While this advent may be indicative of the merging of content and advertising, Adam Cohen, partner with Rosetta’s consumer goods and retail practice cautioned:

It’s important that retailers don’t just slap up a page because everyone is talking about Facebook. An effective presence requires that you carefully consider what your customers are looking for, what you would like to communicate, and what role a fan page should play in your overall online strategy.

What do you think—will content be the new advertising? And how can a Facebook Page play into that?

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"Connected consumers embrace social media, are actively building and refining their own trusted personal networks and are rapidly dabbling with emerging communication offerings like Twitter," said Garrick Schmitt, Razorfish Group Vice President of Experience Planning and FEED editor.

"We find that consumers are more open to advertising as part of their everyday experience than commonly assumed."

The report found that 65 percent of connected consumers say that retail loyalty programs influence purchasing decisions.

Loyalty services like Amazon’s Prime or Best Buy’s Reward Zone are key for retailers to do well in the competitive online environment.

Web sites that offer personalized recommendations strongly influence connected consumers. Over half (65%) said that they have made a repeat purchase on a site that featured an automated recommendation based on their previous purchase.

Schmitt said that 60 percent of consumers use widgets on Web sites, and close to half watch videos on their mobile devices.

"The uptake of widgets, mobile devices and social media tells us that marketers need to design experiences for consumers across a world of fragmented digital media," he said.