Will Facebook’s mobile ads finally give brands the quality content they’ve wanted?
Director of ads product marketing Kelly Graziadei describes the latest features as a “creative canvas for marketers to develop immersive experiences with native speed and responsive”. It continues the fanfare Facebook first started in June when during Cannes it first gave the industry a glimpse of how it sees mobile advertising to its users eventually turning.
In short, this amounts to an amalgamation of everything the social network thinks works with its existing ads, whittled down into a comprehensive set. From full-screen videos to interactive images and photo carousels, the ads effectively allow for microsite-like experiences without forcing users to leave the platform. It’s a strategy the social network has also adopted with traditional content like news stories. The arrival of Instant Articles earlier this year was billed as a CMS for publishers to host content directly on the social network as well as have the option to it handle ad sales around the posts.
Consequently, it’s easy to see why Facebook is moving in this direction – the ads (and articles) simply look better. This is reflected in the PR for the latest ads, which has gone to great lengths to claim they’re not ad formats and instead an experience that can be used to enhance many existing ads that people will engage with after they click. Testing is at the early stage and there are a very small of marketers involved including Gatorade, Michael Kors, Mr Porter, and Carrefour Spain.
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