Publicis CEO Calls Facebook Out

Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis has put out a warning against the supply and demand dilemma of online advertising dollars.

“Everyone is seeing advertising as the manna,” Levy was quoted to say in the Financial Times. “Far too many people are building plans based on advertising and they may well be disappointed because there is not enough money for everyone.” This quote came from a talk Levy gave at the Monaco Media Forum in which he likened this new trend of ad-dependant revenue models to the dotcom crash ten years ago.

“It’s exactly the same situation as we saw at the end of the 1990s, when everyone thought that because he had a website he’d get the valuation. Now everyone building a Web 2.0 operation believes he will receive the advertising,” Levy continued.

He spoke of the issues facing social networks such as Facebook, including the concern over alienating users with the new advertising model. “I’m not sure we’ve found the right way of communicating with that audience,” he said. According to the report he did add that online advertising will continue to grow at a strong pace.

Barry Diller of IAC said also commented on the $15 billion valuation of the company due to the $240 million Microsoft investment. He claimed that this was a strategic move to prevent Google from owning the property and being quoted in the Financial Times to say “If it’s real money it’s insane. Let them sell another 99% for $14.8 billion and I’ll believe it.”