Facebook unveils 3 ad solutions to encourage 'playful experiences'

Social media company Facebook is inviting businesses to "play" with users through three new enhanced ad offerings on Facebook platform involving augmented reality, video polls, and playable formats.

According to the announcement on Facebook Business, the new ad solutions aim to help brands further embrace the trend and deliver a playful experience as well as results. The move is in line with how digital advertising is changing "from a one-way push communication to an ongoing dialogue powered by creativity". The behaviour is seen across its family of apps, with 60% of businesses on Instagram using an interactive element, such as mention, hashtag or poll sticker, in Stories every month.

"These collaborative formats are built to connect with people and draw them in to participate. Over the past few months, we’ve learned that effective collaborative creative follows two principles: invite and reward," said the company. This means inviting people to express or challenge themselves and be a part of something fun and worth their time; and rewarding the people who have interacted with meaningful content that surprises, delights, challenges or discovers something new.

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Facebook is entering open beta for AR Ads globally this fall to allow more advertisers to tap on AR opportunities. People use face filters and fun animation in the one billion stories shared every day across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said Facebook.

It added: "What started with exploring new things on mobile has morphed into vast and varied conversations that welcome people’s participation and will eventually immerse them into shared experiences powered by augmented and virtual reality."

Following the adoption of poll sticker for Instagram Stories ads that rolled out earlier this year, Facebook is now also bringing video poll ads to Facebook mobile feed, globally available this month. It has seen poll ads in Feed drive increased brand awareness and conversions, said the post. For example, in five out of nine brand lift studies, it has observed poll ads increasing brand awareness compared to video ads.

Additionally, it is expanding its playable ad format to allow people to play a game to drive downloads, conversations and brand objectives. The expansion of playables is now available for all advertisers globally.

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