• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 18, 2014

Here’s a sneak peak at some cool, first-of-its kind data MediaPost will begin publishing soon. The data comes from something we’re calling the Advertising Sentiment Index, and it’s based on a daily poll of consumer sentiment of the role advertising plays in influencing their opinions about brands, including ads placed in specific media -- everything from traditional media like TV, newspapers, magazines and radio, to the next new thing. So why is this fodder for Social Graf? Because the only medium to show a significant downward trend is Facebook, and the timing of that trend happens to coincide with some potential consumer backlash to some unsavory disclosures by the social network, especially its so-called “mood manipulation” experiment.

“Facebook continues to suffer from negative press, such as its emotion-manipulating A/B testing and spurious engagements which undermine both the content and platform integrity itself,” says Chris Kahler, co-founder and CEO of Qriously, the opinion-based marketing platform that is powering the index for MediaPost.

Kahler speculates other factors could be at play in the pronounced drop-off of consumer perceptions of Facebook as an ad medium, including plain old wear-out.

“The amount of time users spend in the Facebook app vs total time is increasing,” Kahler explains, noting that many of those ads are “predominantly for app installs -- and of those, largely casual games).

“Users might be suffering some fatigue from the lack of diversity and/or relevance,” Kahler theorizes.

Whatever the reasons may actually be, we can tell you this, based on a nationally projectable sample of consumers polled via Qriously’ mobile-based survey system, Facebook is the only one trending downward in consumer sentiment as an ad medium.

Stay tuned for regular coverage of the Advertising Sentiment Index across all major media.