Facebook announces new features for Slideshow Ads

Last October, Facebook launched slideshow, a lightweight video ad made from a series of still images, created to allow advertisers to use video-like ads in areas with slow connections.

Although slideshow was created to allow advertisers to use video-like ads in areas with slow connections, it has become a great asset for large and small businesses around the world who want an easy, cost-effective way to showcase products and tell their brand story. Slideshows can be created in just minutes with little or no production costs and are more engaging than still image ads.

Now, it is easier than ever for advertisers to tell brand stories in emerging and high-growth countries and the ad format can also be used by small businesses who do not have the resources to create videos.

Facebook is now introducing new features to slideshow, which include:

  • Add text and music: Advertisers can select text fonts, templates and colours to create a rich visual experience. They can also choose from audio tracks that reflect a range of different themes and will soon be able to upload their own audio tracks.
  • Create a slideshow on mobile: Advertisers can now create slideshows on the go with their Android mobile device.
  • Use assets from Facebook’s stock image library: Slideshow is now fully integrated with Facebook’s stock image database and the Pages Photo Library feature, so advertisers can choose from thousands of stock photos, reuse photos from their Pages Photo Library or upload new photos.
  • Bring video to people on every connection speed: Advertisers can now easily turn videos into slideshows by uploading them into the slideshow tool, which will automatically select 10 image stills to use for building a slideshow. This can be combined with 2G targeting to simply and effectively deliver video creative to users on low bandwidth connections.

Slideshow in action

Adidas Pocket Coach (India):
Adidas had launched its new slideshow campaign in the country, called ‘Adidas Pocket Coach. Small towns. Big dreams’. It used Facebook’s slideshow to create lightweight cricket tutorial videos – Adidas’ Pocket Coach that loads five times faster than regular videos. Adidas used Facebook’s targeting capabilities to serve slideshows in the cities outside of these six main metros and used sequencing to serve them in the right order and frequency.

Damyant Singh, Senior Marketing Director, Adidas India, said, “As the authentic sports brand, Adidas’ aim is to encourage and enable athletes in pursuing their passion for sports. The Adidas Pocket Coach Facebook campaign has helped us in reaching out to young athletes who do not have access to coaches and training videos. The lightweight cricket tutorial trained thousands of kids in hundreds of small towns across India, helping them improve their Cricketing skills. Within a very short span, we were able to reach out to a focused target audience and secure more than 1 million views. We plan to further build on this early momentum by continuing to invest in reaching out to even more athletes via regional language adaptations and incorporating additional training capsules.”

Unilever extends their TV ad to all connection speeds in emerging markets:
Unilever’s Paddle Pop ice cream brand in Indonesia developed a TV ad that brought fun animation and a colourful story to life. When it came time to show the creative to mobile, they reused images from the TV ad to create made-for-mobile versions with slideshows, which are faster to load and five times lighter than the average video ad.

Brava Fabrics (Spain):
“We have proved that costumers are more likely to buy if we show them videos than other creative. For example, with slideshow, compared to other videos, we have seen that there’s a higher sensibility for purchasing our products with this creative format, and the conversion is 25 per cent higher than average. This means that without taking in consideration the cost of the click or the relevance (number of people interested), the people who engage with our slideshow campaign are 35 per cent more likely to buy the product,” said Ramón Barbero, Founder of Brava.

Dettol (South Africa):
Dettol used an existing video asset and turned it into a slideshow through the new video to slideshow tool. They were able to show the video to more people on slower connections. “We were able to extend our reach at an efficient cost per view. Slideshow is a great product, especially for Africa,” said Jared Pillai, Digital Manager, Dettol.

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Media