What Happened Facebook has stepped up its ad game by introducing a new way for advertisers to plan, buy, and measure video ads on its platform in junction with their TV campaigns. Dubbed Target Rating Point (TRP) buying, the new tool is aimed wooing TV ad buyers by speaking to the top advertisers in the kind of language that they are familiar with, such as “ratings points” and “GRP.”
What Brands Need To Do By offering the major ad buyers an easy way to plan and track their Facebook campaigns along with their TV buys, Facebook is no doubt trying to position its video ads as the perfect second-screen complement to TV ads. In the past year, Facebook has seen exponential growth of its natively hosted videos, as the social network recently reported 4 billion video views per day, 75% of which come from mobile devices. Brands wishing to reach viewers across multiple screens should consider utilizing this new offering from Facebook.
What Happened Facebook has officially announced it is rolling out 360-degree videos in News Feed, in partnership with Oculus, the virtual reality company it acquired last year for $2 billion. The launch features content from six partners including Star Wars, GoPro, Vice, and SNL. Last week, news broke that Facebook was reportedly developing a separate app for 360-degree videos, which may still be in the pipeline, but for now,Facebook has made good on its promise from this summer’s developer conference to include 360 video in the News Feed.
What Brands Need To Do As of now, Facebook is only allowing brands to post spherical video clips organically to their pages, but given Facebook’s heavy push with autoplay videos, it seems safe to assume that Facebook will package 360-degree videos into ads soon. We expect VR to be a niche market in 2016 in the same way that smartphones were a niche market in 2007, but building a library of 360 content which is accessible across devices will allow brands to stay ahead of the curve.
For more VR news coming out of this week’s Oculus Connect 2 conference, follow our coverage here.
What Happened After a few months of slow progress, Facebook is making some moves to ramp up its content distribution initiative Instant Articles, launched back in May. A number of new publishers have joined previous partners to publish their content natively on Facebook’s platform so as to ensure faster access, with The Washington Post being the most radical, claiming that it will soon start publishing all of its stories directly on Facebook via Instant Articles. Moreover, Facebook is also allowing publishers to push content directly to Facebook as Instant Articles from their content management system (CMS) of choice, which greatly simplifies the process and could lure more publications to try out Instant Articles.
What Brands Should Do As we pointed out previously, the introduction of Instant Articles signals Facebook’s ambitious plan to turn its social network platform into a closed-off mobile ecosystem for digital content, and these recent developments detailed above certainly seem to support the idea. As content discovery becoming increasingly dependent on social – over 60% of Americans now use social media as a news source – it is important for media owners and brands alike to test Facebook’s offerings first to see if its platform works for their specific purposes.
What Happened A week after Facebook first announced the addition of a new mobile-optimized Shop section to Pages, Canadian ecommerce platform Shopify is revealed as the partner that will be powering those new shopping channels on the social network. Shopify says the feature will be made available for all page-owners for free, and merchants can active it by simply adding the Facebook sales channel within the Shopify dashboard in the “coming weeks”. In related news, Shopify has also been selected by Amazon as a preferred Webstore alternative, as the ecommerce giant begin shutting down its own Webstore ecommerce platform in July.
What Brands Should Do The new Shop section allows businesses to sell directly from their Pages, and merchants that are already using Shopify should definitely take advantage of this new partnership. As Shopify allows Shopify shoppers to save their payment information for future purchases, it can create a frictionless shopping experience, which is crucial for conversion rates. As mobile commerce continues to grow substantially, retail and CPG brands would be wise to make use of this new mobile-friendly feature.
The Lab has always kept an eye out for the ever-changing consumer behaviors in ecoomerce. To learn more about the shifting ecommerce space and the opportunities in social commerce, you can contact our Engagement Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) and schedule a visit to the Lab.
What Happened Facebook is reportedly working on a secret new mobile app that aims to bring Virtual Reality (VR) to smartphones. It will support spherical videos and allow users to change viewing perspective by tilting their phones and turning around. If true, this could be a big step towards consumer adoption of VR technologies. Facebook previously announced that it will start shipping a consumer version of its Oculus Rift headset in the first quarter of next year, and this app could serve as a user-friendly entry point for Facebook to familiarize users with VR experiences.
What Brands Should Do Although no further details on the app have been made available, it will likely be open to user-generated content, which means brands like Birchbox and Marriott can easily onboard with their existing VR content. We expect VR to be a niche market in 2016 in the same way that smartphones were a niche market in 2007, therefore it’d be wise for brands to prepare a VR strategy to stay ahead of the curve.
The Lab currently has two VR headsets—an Oculus Rift and a Samsung Gear—ready for demo in the Lab. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood. So come by the Lab and get a VR demo to see just how engaging it can be, and understand why consumers would be excited by this technology.
Update 9/23: Facebook has officially announced it is working with Oculus to roll out 360-degree videos in News Feed, launching with six partners including Star Wars, Vice, and SNL.
What Happened Facebook announced on Tuesday that it’s updating its Pages to offer brands enhanced call-to-action (CTA) buttons and improved layout. Now brands will be able to incorporate new CTA and messaging buttons to capture followers’ attention. Plus, Facebook is adding new sections such as “Shop” and “Services” sections that will help make Pages more organized on mobile devices.
What Brands Should Do The social network company has been making strides in forging a more brand-friendly platform, and this update will no doubt make brand Pages more accessible on mobile devices. The inclusion of a Shop section would allow businesses to sell more of their products right from their Page, dovetailing nicely with the recent rise of social commerce, which retail and CPG brands should definitely pay special attention to.
What Happened Facebook has finally started testing its new immersive mobile ads that it first announced in Cannes this year. Several brands including Gatorade, Mr Porter, Michael Kors and Carrefour are brought on as launch partners to try out the new format, which enables the creation of full-screen interactive experiences within the Facebook mobile app. According to the demo videos that Facebook released, the new ad format and experience feels very close to Facebook’s new publishing tool Instant Articles, essentially swapping out editorial content for branded content.
What Brands Should Do The new format works like an in-app version of a brand’s website but will load more quickly and be more interactive because the content is natively hosted on Facebook. Users would get a richer experience as the new format allows the viewer to flip and scroll through text, photos, videos, and other content. This type of native ad formats has been gaining significance and grabbing industry attention lately, especially with the rise of ad-blockers dismantling the traditional display ads. And if Facebook can prove the ROI on this new format to be worthwhile, brands should certainly get on board and try it out.
Your guide to tech-driven changes in the media landscape by IPG Media Lab. A fast read for you and a forward for your clients and team.
• Facebook started testing its own improved, human-assisted version of Siri
• More than just making suggestions, it will also complete tasks on users’ behalf
• Brands need to explore the new functional layer that many messaging apps are adding to their platform for transactions, customer service, and reaching new customer
What Facebook Announced Over a month after initial reports suggesting Facebook started preparing a human-staffed personal assistant service, the social network announced on Wednesday that it has started testing a new service for its Messenger mobile chat app called M that handles user queries and requests in a text-based interface that looks similar to other conversations on the platform. The service is currently available for a few hundred users in the Bay Area, and will eventually be rolled out to all Messenger users.
Unlike rival virtual assistants Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Google’s Google Now, Facebook claims that M will take it one step further and actually complete tasks on users’ behalf, such as purchasing items, getting gifts delivered, booking restaurants, making travel arrangements and appointments, and more. In addition to AI-powered responses, Facebook also has a team of so-called “M trainers” to handle the requests that AI can’t, ensuring all requests are answered properly.
• Reach customers on apps they’re already using – in this case, Facebook Messenger
• Take advantage of emerging platforms with messaging-based customer service
• Prepare for a new version of SEO to conquer the prime space in AI-generated suggestions
At a time when the U.S. market is finally catching up with the Asian market in discovering messaging apps’ great potential as a commerce platforms, Facebook is looking to take initiative in a nascent ecosystem that brands of all types could benefit greatly from. It is time to start expanding your customer service from phone call-based to include text-based messaging, reaching consumers on the platforms they already use.
As of now, Facebook seems to be deliberately keeping M neutral and completely devoid of “opinions”, i.e. whether something is good or not. Instead, it merely presents all available options as generated by algorithms. While this approach may not seem too welcoming for brand integrations, we are optimistic that Facebook would open up M for sponsored content and branded recommendations in the near future, given Facebook’s trajectory in making Messenger’s platform more brand-friendly so far. And brands need to be ready for what could essentially be a updated version of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that plays around AI algorithms to make sure their content shows up in advantageous positions in M’s recommendations.
Market Impact M will certainly face some tough competitions: Amazon unbundled its virtual assistant Alexa from its smart speaker Echo in June; Microsoft has launched Cortana on new platforms; and Apple is reportedly integrating Siri into its updated Apple TV for voice command. But unlike other virtual assistants, Facebook M holds the advantage of being a hybrid of AI and real-human touches. Boasting over 700 million monthly users and still growing, Facebook Messenger has been actively adding new brand-friendly features to integrate businesses into its platform, clearly aiming to become go-to place for mobile discovery and customer service. Moreover, it bucks the convention of being voice-activated, and instead is text-based. Given the flexibility of conversational UI, however, it seems reasonable to expect Facebook M to adopt speech command down the road as an option, just as its competitors could easily move to texts-based communications to best suit user’s’ needs.
In recent months, we have seen some messaging apps adding a “functional layer” on top of its chatting features to connect customers to businesses. For example, popular Chinese messaging app WeChat has been actively onboarding certified brand accounts to expand the functionality of its messaging platform, to some great success. Similarly, apps like Kik, Vurb, Path, and Tango all updated their platform to add features that seek to connect users to businesses and brands via chat or in-app shops. On the other end of the spectrum, there is Magic, a startup that promises to fulfill any legal request that users send via texts, and employs real humans to handle those requests. Other similar texting-based on-demand service includes Operator, helpa, and the travel-focused Pana. Everywhere we look, the major tech companies are expanding their platforms with business-friendly features that aims to connect consumers with brands in a natural, conversational context.
For More Information Please contact Engagement Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) at the IPG Media Lab if you would like more detail or to schedule a visit to the Lab to discuss strategies and tactics around tapping into the marketing potential of virtual personal assistants and conversational UI..
For previous editions of Fast Forward, please visit ipglab.com. Please reply with any constructive criticism or feedback. We want these to be as useful as possible for you and your clients, and your feedback will help us immensely.
What Happened On Tuesday, Hulu announced it will begin selling ads programmatically across its platforms on desktop, mobile and connected TVs with the help of Facebook’s ad exchange system LiveRail and the Oracle Data Management Platform (DMP). This marks the first time Hulu’s inventory will be available for programmatic buying.
What Brands Should Do As Hulu goes programmatic, it should become much easier for brands to reach the right audience segments with the vast user data that Facebook holds. Moreover, with access to Oracle DMP, advertisers will be able to combine their first-party data with third-party data for ad targeting to offer granular personalization.
What Happened After years of restraint, Facebook finally caved and started supporting animated GIFs in regular user posts back in late May. Yet brand pages were shut out of GIF support. Until today, that is. The social network seemingly relaxed its no-GIFs-from-Pages policy, allowing brands like Wendy’s and Coca-Cola’s Brazilian brand Kuat to post GIFs.
What Brands Can Do As a fun, short-form visual communication, GIFs have long been an Internet favorite across social media. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a GIF is at least a short novel. Well-crafted GIFs are practically silent, autoplay videos on loop, which makes them a suitable form for digital ads. Plus, they provide a good alternative to the dying Flash ads, and enjoy universal support across nearly all platforms. If your brand is looking to grab some eyeballs without being too disruptive, GIF ads would be one great way to do so.
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