Photo: Courtesy of Facebook.
The way advertisements work is about to get tipped on its head. A newly "leaked" presentation given to marketers outlines Facebook's plans for revamping video advertising. "Television is no longer a guaranteed way to reach and engage your target audience,” Facebook writes — a.k.a. Facebook is comin' for ya, TV — watch your back.
YouTube better start battening down the hatches, too. The presentation hints that these new ads will combat the video-sharing platform's forced ad viewing with options that will let users watch ads at their own will. It's also rolling out a new means of sharing videos directly through the social media network itself. A "scrolling" feature will enable users to opt out of watching if they so choose — something YouTube kind of has with its "Skip It" feature. Facebook's format will eliminate the mandatory X-amount of seconds to watch, which is pretty awesome if it comes into fruition.
“When you use video on Facebook, these are chosen views — the consumer clicks to play or scrolls through to watch the video as compared to an ad on YouTube interrupting the user experience and feeling forced," the presentation reads. Despite dropping numbers in television viewing, convincing advertisers to trust Facebook will take time. This means our news feeds will be going through some awkward changes in the beginning of 2014 in an effort to generate numbers to get more advertisers on Facebook's side. Just as long as it doesn't screw with our daily dose of stalking and gossip, we'll be a-okay — bring it on. (TechCrunch)