In the past two years, AI and VR have been amongst the top trending technologies and topics on the Internet. We as marketers and consumers have had a chance to see how the marketing future will look like. AI and VR technology will revolutionize everything because as human beings, we love interaction and dynamic content. And, given everything we know about the attention spans of the millennial audience we have the right amount of dynamic content that will help our brain stay entertained.
Under the influence of the technology trends are all of the social media networks too. Of course, the leader among Social Media networks will be the first to introduce changes that will follow the latest trends. Facebook recently introduced new types of interactive Mobile Ads.
In a blog post, they said “People want to be included in your next big idea, and they are using new innovative ways to do it—fewer words, more GIFs, Facebook Live videos, Reactions, emojis, face filters and stickers. In turn, brands and people are becoming more intertwined, and it’s changing digital advertising from a one-way push communication to an ongoing dialogue powered by creativity.”
The three new interactive solutions by Facebook are: Video Poll Ads, Augmented Reality Ads and Playable Ads. Back in March 2019, Instagram introduced poll sticker for Instagram Stories Ads and Facebook followed the trend by adding Video Poll Ads for mobile News Feed too.
The social media network tested the Ads before introducing it to the world and found that with Video Poll Ads companies can expect a 1.6x increase of brand awareness. The research was done by the cable network E!.
“E! Continually seeks deeper ways to connect with viewers. The launch of Facebook Poll Ads was an exciting opportunity for us to use media in a fun and interactive way ahead of the Season 4 premiere of Total Bellas. Allowing fans to engage with the show helped us create meaningful interactions that drove success throughout the season.” said Eric Eckstein, Senior Director, Digital Marketing, E! Entertainment
This is how the Ads will look. You can watch the full interactive experience here.
The new interactive experience will give brands all over the world a chance to better represent their products and services online. With the AR Ads, people will be able to see and test the product directly from their devices. This is a highly engaging marketing tactic that will provide benefits to both consumers and brands.
The AR Ads were tested by WeMakeUp. The brand created Ads that allow their target audience to try on the makeup directly on their face before buying it. As a result, the brand was able to get 27.6-point increase in purchases and people were interacting with the ad approximately 38 seconds.
Beta version of the AR Ads will be available all around the world this fall.
Last year in August Facebook also presented playable Ads as a way of video games and applications to enable their target audience to try out the game before they decide to press the download button. This playable ad format is now available to users globally. From now on, companies will be able to create simple games that will be shown as Ads to the target audience. This level of interactivity will provide better engagement metrics and conversion rates.
A great example of using this playful format is Vans. With the help of Facebook Creative Shop, they managed to build a game for Christmas that drove 4.4-point lift in ad recall and a 2.4-point lift in favorability. Other companies tried the Playable Ads too. Uber India used this format to promote and spread awareness about the Cricket World Cup. The performance of the Ads was impressive. Playable Ads got them 10% higher CTR then other brand awareness campaigns activated for the same promotion.
We are living in an era where marketers need to work twice as hard to capture consumer’s attention online. This is truly no longer the “Banner Advertising Age,”
As marketers, we’re always looking for the next shiny new object we can implement and use. Over the last couple years we’ve seen video ads, stories (on both Instagram and Facebook), Snapchat Ads, animated gifs, among other ad formats and types available to us. The technology around advertising is iterating and moving faster than we have seen in years. Saying you have to stay on top of the latest ad formats and trends is an understatement.
Facebook finally took us a few steps closer to the future.
We even had a small visual glimpse about how the new generation Ads will look like in the movies “Ghost in a Shell” and “Blade Runner”. The directors of these movies gave us a good idea of how the Ads of the future will look like.
Is Facebook making the first step towards the future? Possibly, yes. We will see more improvements in this area and completely new consumer behavior on the market. Even if we are far away from the AR Ads like in the movie “Blade Runner”, we are not so far from AR marketing solutions. The changes are already happening and will soon affect every social media network available on the market.
Mark D’Arcy – Facebook’s vice president of global business marketing and chief creative officer in the latest blog post said, “Advertising needs to work harder than ever to be more relevant and rewarding for the people we’re making it for. Creativity, as always, is the key, and our new polling, AR and playable Ads are great examples of more interactive and playful ways to surprise, delight, inform and connect with the audiences and communities we all serve.”
