Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Shortly before Facebook’s turbulent IP “uh oh”, GM announced that it was pulling its $10 million advertising budget from Facebook. Controversy erupted. Accusations ensued. Camps divided into three factions, those who support GM, those who support Facebook and those not yet ready to take a stance either way, but are paying attention.

It will forever be known as “the meeting” between Facebook sales executives and General Motors Global CMO Joel Ewanick and other GM senior marketing executives. In the end, Facebook and GM each walked away with less than they had walking into the meeting. Facebook lost a premier advertiser and also lost Ewanick as an advisor to its invitation-only client council. GM lost the ability to demonstrate leadership in a time where the advertising and automotive industries are flailing. All is not lost however as GM will continue to spend $30 million annually in managing its Facebook presence through earned and shared media strategies.

So what happened in that now infamous meeting? Perhaps one day, its premise will inspire an episode of AMC’s Mad Men…

It’s a dark, dimly lit room illuminated only by a projector. Cigarette smoke fills the only visible light. On the wall is an image of Facebook’s timeline. Don Draper leans forward. His words cut through the smoke. In a calm voice with menacing undertones, Draper asserts his one and only reason for staying in that room, “my client has requested a home page takeover. Now, before you respond, allow me to be clear. This, what it is you’re selling, your advertising products, they don’t work for us. We have deep pockets and we’re willing to invest in the right partner that shares our vision. Now, how about you play nice like all of the other media partners and give us what we want.”

Facebook responds, “no thank you.” The sales team then shuts their iPad and MacBook Air lids and proceeds to leave the room in what almost seems like a well-rehearsed exit. They must do this often. Draper sits back in his chair and exerts a simple, but telling response, “huh…”

While many speculated what actually took place in the meeting, Advertising Age’s Cotton Delo reported that the scenario above is probably not far from the truth. GM is interested in Facebook’s audience, but believes that the ad formats currently available are unattractive and ineffective. The automaker’s team desired bigger, higher-impact ad units. After all, GM and many other brands around the world have learned the art and science of advertising by investing in campaigns that stand out from others, literally and figuratively.

So why is Facebook steadfast in its position to not cash in? The answer is user experience. Facebook is home to over 900 million engaged users. U.S. users alone spend 441 and 391 minutes per month on average interacting on Facebook’s desktop and mobile platforms respectively. Mark Zuckerberg and the storied “build and ship” culture he’s created is passionately dedicated to improving and not compromising the user experience. For the time being, anything that disrupts that experience is off the negotiation table even it means the company must walk away from $10 million deals. As a publicly traded company however, it must now also improve investor experiences.

At some point, brands will need to see additional options for paid media. By design, advertisements should be engaging rather than distractions. But a large part of the problem has nothing to do with form, but instead function. Advertisers are still deploying uninspired digital ads on other platforms. Many bring that methodology to social media. Accordingly, the metrics traditional marketers use to measure success in social networks are limited to impressions, reach, clicks, and engagement.

“A bad ending follows a bad beginning.” – Euripides

Advertisers need to think about new end-to-end experiences that inspire and engage a far more connected and discerning audience. Home page takeovers are for Myspace and the digital nomads who roam elsewhere on the web. Facebook is a new type of co-created canvas that requires different strokes to attract a savvy clientele.

Even though GM remains committed to Facebook through earned, owned, and shared programs, it appears to carry a traditional philosophy and approach to its everyday community strategy. General Motors currently is home to 383,000 Likes. Chevrolet boasts just over 1.2 million. Changing lanes for a moment, its competitor Ford has more than 10 million fans globally with 4 million supporting Mustang, the single largest vehicle fan page on Facebook.

I reached out to Scott Monty who leads Ford’s Global Digital Communications for his thoughts on GM’s move. Ford sees Facebook as a new vehicle for storytelling where paid, earned, owned, shared, and promoted media converge to create a new story board that begets new rules. According to Monty, “Ford is accelerating our efforts in Facebook and other social platforms. 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.”

One of Ford’s much touted successes on Facebook was its introduction of the 2011 Ford Explorer via its “Reveal” campaign. The company claims that the combination of advertising and creative storytelling helped it outperform a traditional Super Bowl advertisement for a fraction of the cost.

Monty emphasized support of Facebook, “We continue to have a strong, collaborative relationship with Facebook, which includes first-of-a-kind vehicle reveals, advertising and innovative ways of sharing content. Our engineers have also been working with Facebook engineers to develop unique and safer ways of integrating the car experience with Facebook.”

Ford’s Facebook strategy is also an extension of a more empathetic marketing and sales campaign that’s underway worldwide. I had the chance to interview Jim Farley, Ford’s first CMO during Blogworld Expo in Los Angeles. His mission as instructed by Ford President Alan Mulally was to, “get people to fall in love with the blue oval all over again.”

When brands approach marketing and advertising opportunities with a purpose, the results that follow are commensurate with an investment of both intention and execution. In other words, you get out of it what you put into it. And according to a report due this week, comScore has found that Facebook ads are effective. In a report by CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, she explained that comScore thinks Facebook ads are having a “statistically significant positive lift on people’s purchasing of a brand.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For years, advertising has made a business by thinking outside of the box. But when it comes to flat, consumerized networks such as Facebook, perhaps the industry needs to think outside of the box once again. Facebook is not without fault however. It too must help advertisers create and measure successful campaigns while enticing the community of active users to support the brands they love. Over the last few weeks alone, Facebook introduced new APIs to help advertisers design “clicks to action” within its marketing efforts to trigger what could be unconventional, but possibly more meaningful outcomes. It challenges marketers to think beyond the Like or traditional impressions for that matter.

In what seemed to be a direct response to GM’s adieu, Facebook also introduced a clever new tool that shows marketers just what they’re missing. Now within the timeline, marketers can see reach data for each post. Information includes the number of total fans who may have seen the post and the amount people who were reached through paid promotion.

Facebook is teaching marketers that it’s not just about whom you reach, the opportunity also lies among those you do not reach today.

The court of public opinion may be weighing in on the matter of Facebook vs. GM. But I think the real case is against the people in social networks vs. traditional marketing methodologies. What’s clear is that Facebook is intent on serving users first. Perhaps advertisers could take a cue from Zuckerberg to rethink experiences through advertising and marketing campaigns that consumers can’t help but click, share, and engage.

Conference Room: Shutterstock

The Spark of Genius Series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Each post highlights a unique feature of a startup. If you’d like your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: HipSwap

Quick Pitch: An online consignment store for designer fashion and home goods.

Genius Idea: A more visual, more secure alternative to Craigslist.

There are many things to love and despise about Craigslist. In the former category, it’s got a clean, simple interface with adequate search and browsing capabilities, it’s free to use and it’s incredibly easy to list goods you want to get rid of. But anyone who’s used Craigslist also knows it can be a headache: Without a verified payment system, the site is a notorious draw for scammers. It can also be difficult to coordinate the buying or selling of goods, since users must often book appointments with each other to examine items and transact sales.

HipSwap, which launched in beta last November, has developed an online and mobile consignment service that addresses many of those issues. CEO and Cofounder Rob Kramer says he was inspired to launch the company after trying to sell a handmade collectors’ bike last year: He found eBay’s listing process a headache, and it was impossible to show the beauty of the bike on Craigslist, he said.

“eBay is an amazing company, but it has catered over the years to professional sellers,” he observed. “It’s become too complicated for mass-market sellers, the people who want to sell stuff out of their closets, their garages, their homes. We also wanted to make this a venue for local shops with unique inventory.”

HipSwap invites users to set up their own shops with bios and links to their social media profiles, connect (and verify) their PayPal accounts and list items for free. Listings can even be cross-posted to Craigslist with a single click.

Sellers can specify whether an item can be shipped, or if it is only available for local pickup or delivery. If buyers live in Los Angeles or New York City, they can opt to have their item picked up and delivered via one of HipSwap’s pink vans for a mere $5 — great if you’re in the market for furniture. The startup charges a 3.5% introductory transaction fee.

The listing experience is solid, but the site’s browsing and filtering capabilities are in need of some improvement. Shoppers can browse the site by category, region, store or seller or the curated collections HipSwap features on its front page. They can’t, however, filter by brands or sizes, which makes shopping the many clothing and accessories products on its site difficult. Search is not much help in that department, either; though I came across size 9 heels on the site, typing in “heels size 9″ yielded no results.

HipSwap also runs a charitable program called “HipSwap Saturdays.” Residents of Los Angeles and New York City can arrange to have their items picked up and delivered to Goodwill for free on Saturdays.

Santa Monica, Calif.-based startup has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from investors including Founders Fund, Greycroft Partners, Mahalo President Jason Rapp and former Microsoft exec (and early Pinterest investor) Hank Vigil.

Going forward, Kramer says HipSwap is focused on building out its verification systems, video offerings and linking up users’ social profiles to help them discover items based on their interests. The startup also plans to expand its delivery service to more cities, including San Francisco, and launch an Android app.

Image courtesy of Flickr, andrewarchy

Series presented by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible byMicrosoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives software startups three-year access to Microsoft software development tools, marketing visibility to help promote their business and a connection to the BizSpark ecosystem, giving them access to investors, advisors and mentors. There is no cost to join, so if your startup is privately owned, less than three years old and generates less than U.S. $1M in annual revenue, sign up today.

Origin stories are de rigueur these days when it comes to design; it’s almost not enough to simply see a finished piece without also knowing the details of how it came to be. This year at Design Miami, W Hotels incorporated this narrative theme into its third annual Designer of the Future award, given to three up-and-comers who embody the brand’s design-as-experience spirit. The recipients–Markus Kayser, Philippe Malouin, and Tom Foulsham–were tasked with creating pieces around the concept “From Spark to Finish,” with the goal to illuminate part of their methods in the final works.

“We wanted to turn the lens in on the process itself,” Mike Tiedy, W’s Senior Vice President of Global Brand Design and Innovation, tells Co.Design. Considering the polished results, it’s impressive that the designers had only about a month’s notice to create the custom works, having received word of the nod during Milan’s Design Week in April then presenting these projects in Basel this month. The open-ended brief was intended to elicit disparate results. “We’re looking for people who aren’t following a typical path,” Tiedy says. “We appreciate their experimental nature.”

Both Kayser and Malouin played upon the “spark” aspect with lighting projects: LIGHTzeit is an installation that elegantly explores the connection between nature and technology, with fixtures that revolve to mimic the path of the sun (more about it here); Daylight transforms the vernacular of plantation-style shutters into a series of geometric Tanagram shapes, displayed alongside drawings, prototypes, and pictures that further illuminate the progression of the idea from conception to completion. The generation of energy acted as Foulsham’s muse, and his Go-Round is a bit more esoteric–a balancing device, sturdy enough to hold the weight of two adults, that is also agile enough to be triggered into rotation with nothing more than a powerful exhale.

Now that they’ve debuted, the works will make their way to W properties worldwide, popping up in conjunction with design week activities, lectures, and events. And you can expect to see more collaborations between the brand and the designers themselves. “More and more we’re trying to bring them in as we have hotels being built. We want to use their talents to come up with new ideas,” Tiedy says. “That’s our ultimate goal–to involve them in actually crafting the identity for these hotels.”