This from Greg Yardley sums up my attitude too:
I’ve got no real interest in any of the crappy brands I’m given the ability to ‘endorse‘ on Facebook. You know what I want to endorse? Neat stuff. Handmade stuff. Obscure stuff. Edgy stuff. Things I think my friends will actually like, and won’t hear about on their own from a million other people. When I can click a bookmarklet or fill out a quick form and let everyone know how much I’m enjoying the monster laptop sleeve from Barry’s Farm, without forcing Barry’s Farm to pay a bajillion dollars for the privilege, then we’ll talk. And if Facebook as a company doesn’t realize that that type of recommendation – which disrupts and destroys traditional advertising, instead of trying to prop it up – is ultimately more valuable to them than whatever Coca-Cola’s paying, they’re not nearly as smart as they think they are.
The real trick in the advertising world is figuring out how to get someone to feel a big brand is as valuable to refer to friends as an edgy/new/obsure brand. But, as long as we live in a world that forces us to be similar in our uniqueness, and welcome rebellion of the same uniqueness we all strive for, it will never happen.
And the real problem in advertising is finding a way to make it not advertising, but just helping out a friend.
What Facebook is doing is certainly an interesting step in this direction, but it will fall flat as Facebook becomes a monolith brand itself. It will be a case of the messenger swallowing the message.