First, you ask if he wants your honest opinion. No one likes unsolicited critism.
Second, what makes you qualified to say his idea sucks? Many people in history were told their idea sucked.
Next...sometimes it's good to let people fail. It builds character. We learn by making mistakes.
But if you feel like you must give criticism...don't simply say it sucks. That's just as useless as saying it's wonderful. If you don't like his idea, say what you don't like about it AND give a suggestion about how to make it better.
The bottom line: your opinion is just one of many and a suggestion is always better than a criticism. Especially when he's your friend.
I'm not here to make you believe anything. Do what's working for you. If Facebook ads are not working for you, stop using them, or seek the help of someone more qualified than you and your team.
Thank you for being one of the few logical people in this thread. People love to bring out their pitchforks, and report / downvote (or whatever it is they do here) when someone disrupts the "flow" of things.
The guy ran a poor ad. It's his fault, not Facebooks.
No, it's not. This is as much of a Facebook problem as it is Google's problem that people send SPAM to people on the internet. This guy doesn't know how to market. People think that advertising is a magic button that you push and you get results. Hilarious.
I'm a fan of what works. And right now Facebook is what is working. I don't know if it's the same for you, but not a day goes by where I don't overhear someone talking about Facebook in public.
About the video, the guy ran a poor campaign for a pointless page. He was expecting advertising to work like a magic button where you click it and you get engagement. The guy had no product and no target market. He advertised nothing to everyone. Of course he's going to get poor results.
About the click farms. Yeah, they do exist. But it's not Facebook's fault. Just like it's not Google's fault if people use the internet to send spam. You have to think about the scale that Facebook operates. They're the number two website in the world. And the number one social network. Let that settle in for a second. Fraudulent activity is, unfortunately, inevitable when you have a site like that.
The bottom line: become smarter with your ads. Have an actual product and a real audience. Ironically, I know of a copywriter / marketer that made a website for the dog niche. He gets 800,000 engagements a week on it. Every one of his posts gets 500-26,000 likes and tons of comments. The site is basically a news site for dogs. He just does content right. And he knows how to advertise. He doesn't spend time making fancy videos like this guy did. He gets things done. He gets results. He partners with dog related products and services and makes a killing entirely from a Facebook page.
This video is an insult to marketers. It's like me trying to insert a floppy disk into a cdrom drive, then complaining that computer makers are all frauds.
I'm not a fan of this video. One is that it's told in a very convincing way. He sure spent some time on his charts and making his opinion sound factual. The problem is that he is wrong. Facebook ads are the most effective way to advertise, if you do them correctly. It's not Facebook that's fraudulent here. Facebook did what they said they'll do. It's the way this guy ran the ad that's the problem.
I'm so glad this video came out. People like me can continue to dominate Facebook ads. This video will scare people away that do not know how Facebook ads work. Ask any internet marketer, Facebook ads are dominating unlike anything in history.
A part of me thinks this video was made to drive people away from FB advertising on purpose.
As a copywriter, I know that the better you are at fine writing, the more of a disadvantage you are in.
When you write to sell, you want the focus to be on the product - not your smooth talking voice.
Imagine a salesperson using poetry to sell you something. Although it would be entertaining, it would not help sell the product.
Don't write to entertain. Don't write to make YOU sound better. Write for THEM.
The problem with academia is it is built around bolstering YOUR ego. In the real world, having a big ego is counterproductive to working your way up the ladder. It's like having a broken leg in a marathon.
Don't believe me? Just look at how much trouble people with degrees are having. They can't find jobs. They don't have social skills. They have big egos, but can't make money.
And yes, I have a degree. I have a piece of paper that I can tell people I have. My clients are only mildly interested in the fact that I have one.