MAM
Facebook’s New Ads Bundle Signals Growing Importance of Interactivity in Online Advertising
New Delhi: Facebook is rolling out a suite of new interactive ad solutions today including Poll ads, Augmented Reality (AR) ads, Instagram poll stickers for Stories ads, and Brand Playables. The new Ad solutions released today are built on people’s natural desire to interact, engage, and touch. Interactive Ads enable instant two-way communication and get people involved, which is a natural fit for how people, especially the youth, engages on mobile phones. With the festive season coming up in India, this suite of interactive Ads can help advertisers engage with their consumers in new and interesting ways.
"At Facebook, we build for people first. This means our products, services, and Ad solutions have evolved to meet people’s growing desire to engage and participate in ideas. This is also a key reason why they have delivered consistent business results for our advertisers, large and small. In the age of reducing attention spans, Interactive Ads are one of the most effective ways of holding the attention of the consumer. They are also easy to execute – a poll Ad can be created in just five seconds. The new Ad bundle will especially add value to brands looking at high-engagement festive campaigns,” said Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of Global Marketing Solutions (GMS), at Facebook India.
Increasingly people want to participate in a brand’s big idea and they’re using innovative ways of doing so – less words, more GIFs, Lives, 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. “This behavior is unfolding across our family of apps. Already, 60% of businesses on Instagram use an interactive element such as @mention, hashtag or poll sticker, in Stories every month. 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. To help brands further embrace this trend, we are announcing new ad solutions that encourage a playful experience between people and businesses, and deliver results,” said May Seow, APAC Creative Strategy Lead, The Creative Shop at Facebook.
Facebook is now bringing video poll ads to Facebook mobile Feed, globally available this month. Poll ads allow advertisers to insert polls to video ads and enable an interactive, personalized advertising experience. Facebook is launching three variants of poll ads, and each will support the reach, brand awareness objective (BAO), traffic, and app installs objectives:
· Poll Only: enable advertisers to interact with their target audience to drive brand lift.
· Poll plus Watch & Browse: enable advertisers to capture peoples' preference for personalized journeys on their websites.
· Poll plus Watch & Install: enable advertisers to interact with people and drive them toward an app install.
Advertisers can insert a poll question and two corresponding response options to a video ad campaign in the Facebook mobile News Feed. “In early findings, we’re seeing poll ads in Feed drive increased brand awareness and conversions. For example, in 5 out of 9 brand lift studies, we observed poll ads increased brand awareness compared to video ads,” Seow said.
In addition to interactive questions, people use face filters and fun animation in the 1 billion stories shared every day across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. For businesses, the augmented reality opportunity is clear. For WeMakeUp, a US-based cosmetics brand, AR Ads on Facebook enabled customers to try on its latest shade of lipstick, and as a result the brand drove a 27.6 point lift in purchases with the average person spending 38 seconds interacting with the ad unit. Facebook is now expanding this AR opportunity to more advertisers, entering open beta for AR Ads globally over the next few months.
Lastly, Facebook is also expanding its playable ad format that allows people to play a game to drive downloads, conversations, and brand objectives. Uber India used the Playable format for a campaign during the 2019 Cricket World Cup and saw 3X higher Ad Recall Lift Rate and 10% higher click through rate (CTR) compared to other brand awareness campaigns.
The expansion of playables is now available for all advertisers globally.
MAM
Time brings TIME100 Next franchise to India with Reliance
List to spotlight 100 emerging leaders, gala set for December 2026 in Mumbai.
MUMBAI: It’s about time India’s next wave got a global spotlight and now, it’s on the list. New York-headquartered Time is expanding its TIME100 Next franchise to India, partnering with Reliance Industries Limited to launch TIME100 Next India, its first international extension of the rising leaders platform. The announcement was made at the Time100 Gala in New York by Jessica Sibley and Nita Mukesh Ambani, signalling a strategic push to tap into India’s growing influence across sectors.
The India edition will recognise 100 emerging leaders from the country and the global Indian diaspora, spanning business, science, sports, arts and social impact. The list will be curated by Time’s editorial team and published online, continuing the franchise’s focus on identifying individuals shaping the future.
The initiative will culminate in a gala event scheduled for December 2026 at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, anchoring the platform within India’s cultural and business ecosystem.
TIME’s broader Time100 franchise has steadily expanded its global footprint since 2021 through events and impact-led initiatives. Executives noted that India’s growing pool of influential voices and innovators made it a natural next step for the platform’s international ambitions.
For Reliance, the partnership aligns with its broader push to support emerging talent and ideas on a global stage. For Time, it marks a timely bet on India not just as a market, but as a talent engine shaping the next chapter of global leadership.
