Facebook with
1.2B members globally, has announced plans to run 15-second video ads in users'
newsfeeds from late April or early May 2014
The 15-second
targeted ads will play without any sound, will stop entirely if users scroll
past them, and appear in news feeds no more than three times per day. This is
as part of its delicate balancing act of seeking to increase revenue while
trying not to aggravate users.
- Each 15-sec video ad will start playing without sound as it appears on screen and stop if people scroll past. If people tap the video, it will expand into a full-screen view and sound will start.
- Facebook will only allow video ads that it judges are of a high-enough quality standard, and these assessments will be conducted in partnership with Ace Metrix, the video evaluation firm
- Audiences for these premium videos will be measured by Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR), and advertisers will then pay according to what Nielsen OCR discovers.
- Advertisers will be able to choose specific times of the day for their videos as well as the means to target users by age and gender.
I’m not surprised that Facebook has launched this video format.
Like any FB user, I am anxious to see how intrusive this could be and evidently
such concerns have taken long for FB to make this product available to the
market. Native video formats have been available for almost a year, and have
been found to be extremely popular with both advertisers and publishers. Native
video seems to have emerged as an important video advertising format of the
future. Facebook's foray into video ads would further propel the momentum of
the convergence of TV and online video.
Facebook's reach and the
built-in functionality for sharing ads with friends will make this an
interesting space to watch. Clever, targeted short-form brand content could be
more successful than online video ads - especially with an opportunity to
share. I am particularly curious to see how this plays out for mobile users where
connectivity issues risk introducing load problems. Will the scrolling function
within a mobile experience effectively launch each video in the feed as the
user looks for new posts?
Historically advertisers have struggled to unify their media buys across devices due to the lack of standardized metrics. Nielsen OCR is just one solution, not the be all and end all of metrics in this space. We can hope to see more metrics and tools built to measure and manage this space in the future.
Historically advertisers have struggled to unify their media buys across devices due to the lack of standardized metrics. Nielsen OCR is just one solution, not the be all and end all of metrics in this space. We can hope to see more metrics and tools built to measure and manage this space in the future.
When Facebook
launches the service later this year, it will be in a kind of competition with
Twitter, which is also targeting TV advertisers with products such as tweet ads
that marry with programs.
How do you think this would influence marketing communications?
Do share your thoughts.
