Tag: Facebook

Fandango Starts Selling Tickets On Facebook & iMessage, Soon On Snapchat

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Fandango is embracing the omnichannel approach as it starts to allow users to buy movie tickets on some of the hottest mobile platforms. Over the weekend, the ticket-booking service started allowing U.S. customers to purchase tickets to select movies without leaving their Facebook News Feed. Previously, Fandango had enabled iPhone users to buy movie tickets directly from its iMessage app. And the company says it is working on an interface that allows Snapchat users to buy tickets without leaving the app.

What Brands Need To Do
More and more consumers are growing accustomed to making purchases on their phones, spelling opportunities for brands to sell directly on mobile. Fandango’s strong push into selling movie tickets on these three popular mobile platforms is a smart move that caters to changing consumer behavior and reaches customers in apps they spend the most time in. Therefore, other brands, especially those in retail and entertainment, should take note and consider integrating those social and messaging platforms into their sales channels.

 

Source: New York Times

 

Facebook Helps Retailers Sync Ads With Local Inventory

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Tuesday, Facebook announced a new ad product called “dynamic ads for retail” that are designed to only appear when the advertised product is actually in stock at local stores. They allow retailers to plug in brick-and-mortar inventory and serve ads for products that are available at a location close to the users seeing them. Retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Argos, Macy’s, Target, and Williams-Sonoma are currently testing this new ad product, which Facebook says will be rolled out to more brands in the coming weeks.

What Retailers Should Do
This ad product offers retailers a great way to sync up their local inventories with their Facebook campaigns, bridging the gap between physical availability and digital promotions. Retailers should take advantage of this location-based, dynamic ad product to reach shoppers in a more effective way.

To learn more about how retailers can make use of the digital tools available to reach shoppers across platforms, check out the Boundless Retail section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook Allows Messenger Chatbots To Accept Payments

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook will soon allow chatbots on its Messenger service to accept payments. Messenger bots will be able to use credit card information users saved in Facebook or Messenger without having to open a webpage to complete purchases. Developers can now apply for a closed beta test program if they wish to add this feature, which Facebook says will become more broadly available by the end of the year. To ensure a smooth checkout experience that supports most payment options, Facebook is reportedly working with all the major players in digital payments including Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

What Brands Need To Do
This new feature marks an important step for Facebook to fully realize the ecommerce potential of chatbots. It creates a frictionless purchase experience within chat that signals huge opportunities for social commerce, as WeChat’s success in China has shown. Therefore, brands that are consider developing Messenger bots need to take this new capability into account.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016 and our latest Fast Forward analysis on chatbots. If you wish to develop a branded chatbot to connect with consumers on messaging apps, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Facebook Rolls Out Star Trek-Themed Reactions To Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is honoring the 50th anniversary of Star Trek with a custom set of Reaction emojis. The social network says only users in the U.S. and Canada who have shown interest in the sci-fi franchise or interacted with Star Trek-related content are able to see the themed emojis.

What Brands Need To Do
While it appears that there’s no involvement from the owners of Star Trek’s IP on this initiative, this move shows a new possibility for brands to integrate their IP with Facebook’s platform. In an age of peak distraction and ad avoidance, such native integrations can provide brands with a better chance at effectively connecting with their target audiences. If your brand would like to consider similar integrations on popular digital platforms to reach consumers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image courtesy of Facebook’s Vimeo Video

Facebook Adds An Offers Tab For Digital Coupons

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook continues to dive deeper into ecommerce as the social network updates its existing Offers product for saving digital coupons. Now Facebook users can save digital coupons they collect from Facebook Pages and ads to an Offers tab. Facebook will remind users via push notifications when an offer is nearing its expiration date. The update also grants brands more control over who can see an offer ad by using Facebook’s ad-targeting options.

What Brands Need To Do
As more and more consumers now shopping online and with their smartphones in store, leveraging smartphone-enabled technologies such as mobile payment and digital coupons will make for a crucial part of the consumer experience. The new Offers features give users more incentives to shop with Facebook in stores and online. For brands looking to experiment with social commerce, Facebook Offer and its affiliate ad products should be a good place to start.

For more information on why brands should adopt an omnichannel approach, check out the Boundless Retail section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook To Add Vertical Video Support To News Feed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
It looks like Facebook is not done taking cues from Snapchat for new products just yet. The social network announced today that it will soon fully support vertical videos to users’ News Feed on mobile. The videos will appear in News Feed in a 2:3 aspect ratio so as not to take up the whole screen, the way they do on Snapchat or within Facebook’s Canvas ad format.

Facebook has technically allowed users to upload vertical videos for about a year, although the videos would appear as squares in feed until the user taps on the video. Brands that are involved in the early testing stage of this feature include Ruby Tuesday, Mountain Dew, GE, Axe, and Budweiser.

What Brands Need To Do
Spearheaded by apps like Snapchat and Periscope, vertical videos have proven a hit with mobile users and Facebook adding support for it signals that the previously hesitant brands and publishers have now embraced the format. If your brand is still serving mobile users horizontal video ads, it may be time to reconsider and join the trend that caters to consumer behavior on mobile.

 

Source: AdWeek

 

Facebook Tests Autoplay Mobile Video With Sound

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Don’t be startled by the unexpected loud sound you may hear next time you scroll past a video in your Facebook feed. The social network is said to be testing its autoplay videos on mobile to play with the sound on, as it aims to make its video products more engaging. The test is reportedly active in Australia, where some videos in the News Feed is playing with the sound on.

Why Brands Should Care
There have been some debates over the role of sound in social video ads, and publishers and brands have more or less adapted to the silent autoplay video (unless clicked upon) standard that Facebook sets by including more captions to make their videos watchable even without audio. Should Facebook choose to move forward with this test, it certainly creates new opportunities for brands to grab Facebook users’ attention with audio cues. But brands also need to beware of the potential disruption that autoplay video with sound may bring to the user experience, and should deliberate with the creatives to decide on the best approach for your social video campaigns.

 

Source: Mashable

Facebook Updates Slideshow Ads With Text and Music Options

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has updated its Slideshow ads, the multi-image ad unit designed for regions with internet connections too slow for video ads. Now advertisers using this ad product can include more images in their slideshows, as well as add text and background music to them. At the moment, Facebook provides some themed music tracks for advertisers to choose from but says that marketers will be able to upload their own music soon. In addition, brands now have the option to specifically target their Slideshow ads against users on 2G networks.

What Brands Need To Do
According to Facebook, brands that use Slideshow ads have seen some positive results. For example, sock company Stance reported their cost per acquisition decreased by 48% and clickthrough rates more than doubled with a Slideshow ad. This update brings more customization features to Slideshow ads, which brands seeking to reach mobile consumers in certain developing global markets should take advantage of.

Source: AdWeek

 

Facebook Offers Advanced Metrics For Live And 360-Degree Videos

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has added some advanced metrics for video creators, aiming to help them better understand who their audience is and what they are interested in. Among the new metrics are demographic information for viewers of all videos, a breakdown of the most engaging moments in Live videos based on viewer activity, and a heat map of where viewers are paying attention while they watch 360-degree videos.

What Brands Need To Do
Facebook has been making a strong push for its video products in the past few years in pursuit of user attention and video ad spending. For example, earlier this week, the social network added support for Apple’s AirPlay and Google Chromecast on its mobile app to allow users to stream in-feed videos and Live videos to their TVs. These new video metrics should come as welcome additions for brands publishing videos and hosting live events on Facebook, allowing them to delve into viewer behavior to gain insights that could help guide future video production.  

 

Source: TechCrunch

Facebook Sidesteps Desktop Ad-Blockers, Promises To Improve Ad Relevance

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is taking measures to render ad-blockers useless on its desktop site. The social network is masking the signifiers that ad-blockers use to detect digital ads, effectively making ad content indistinguishable from non-advertising content. This new anti-ad-blocking initiative will only affect desktop users, as ads served in Facebook’s mobile apps are typically not affected by mobile ad-blockers. The company is also promising users more options to personalize their ad experience with a updated Ad Preference tool.

What Brands Need To Do
Even though the majority of Facebook users are now accessing the service on mobile devices, its desktop site still draws significant online traffic because of Facebook’s massive user base. So this anti-ad-blocking initiative should help Facebook recover some viewability of its desktop ads. Moreover, this move encapsulates Facebook’s strategy in dealing with the increasing usage of ad-blockers –– blocking ad-blocking usage but also working on improving the ad experience –– is a strategy that brands should benefit from as it seeks to improve both the viewability of Facebook ads and the relevance of those ads. In the meantime, brands should try their hands at native ads or branded content to reach consumers that are growing tired of subpar digital ad experiences and are therefore turning to ad-blockers.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers who are actively choosing to avoid ads, please check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: New York Times