A party to what had been one of the biggest recent divorces on Madison Avenue may be having second thoughts.

General Motors, which made headlines in May 2012 when it stopped running paid advertising on Facebook, said on Tuesday that it had begun a test program of paid ads on facebook.com aimed at consumers who check Facebook on their mobile devices.

The decision to conduct the test – involving a Chevrolet model, Sonic, aimed primarily at younger drivers — came after discussions between executives of G.M. and Facebook about working together again.

Although General Motors has continued to have a significant presence on Facebook through its free fan pages, the company’s decision to discontinue its paid ads drew a lot of attention because it came days before the first initial public offering of Facebook stock.

“Chevrolet is testing a number of mobile advertising solutions, including Facebook,” Chris Perry, vice president for United States marketing of the Chevrolet division of General Motors, said in a statement e-mailed to a reporter. The test is part of a new campaign for Chevrolet that carries the theme “Find new roads,” he added.

The test involves a mobile-only pilot campaign for Sonic, Mr. Perry said, that uses “newly available targeting and measurement capabilities on Facebook.”

According to Ryndee Carney, a spokeswoman at General Motors in Detroit, General Motors “worked closely with Facebook” on the idea for the test campaign, which was presented to “the Chevrolet digital team, Carat and Commonwealth.”

Those were references to two advertising agencies that work with G.M. Carat is the company’s media agency and Commonwealth is the creative agency for Chevrolet.

The decision by General Motors to end its paid ads on facebook.com was said at the time to have cost Facebook $10 million. The budget for the test campaign is not being disclosed.

The decision by G.M. to withdraw its paid ads from facebook.com was made by Joel Ewanick, the chief global marketing executive at G.M., who resigned in July 2012 about two and a half months after the decision was disclosed. There had been speculation when he left that his departure might hasten a reconciliation between Facebook and General Motors.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/g-m-returns-to-facebook-for-a-test-for-now/?partner=rss&emc=rss