Facebook News Update 2014: Gone are the days of FB's "grandiose advertising" as the social media giant swaps their advertisement to cute TV spot from Wieden + Kennedy. According to Adweek.com, the ad entitled "Say Love You Better" "captures some of the intimate emotions behind social media."
According to the online site Adweek, the new commercial "takes Facebook in a different direction. Life-size speech bubbles pop up over two lovebirds as they send short messages back and forth to each other via Facebook Messenger. It's also a clever take on mobile messaging, which often only mentions texting features in ads. The idea is to show that Facebook Messenger can share much more than text. It includes audio, video and stickers."
According to Adweek, the commercial is running in Los Angeles and Chicago. By November, the campaign will be expanded to include out-of-home elements. "Billboards in Chicago and L.A.'s airports and freeways will play up creative showing the different features of Facebook Messenger. Ads will also wrap Chicago's "L" trains and bus shelters."
Reportedly, Facebook's ads have been criticized for "not focusing on the intimate, human moments that social media can spur."
Fox Business reported in 2012 that Facebook gets more comfortable with entering the personal space of its users with advertisements. During that year, sponsored and promotional stories become more prevalent and seem to be showing up more frequently, higher up on the page and right in the middle of mobile News Feeds. Analysts seem optimistic that they will help rejuvenate sales.
"Ads are already becoming more intrusive" and Ken Wisnefski, Webimax CEO, said in that 2012 report that if the site "becomes overrun with ads [and] no one is responding" Facebook may have to resort to other methods of raising revenue, such as asking its millions of users to pay a small monthly fee.
Adweek noted that other digital companies are latching on to this "out-of-home and digital ads" tactic in advertisement.