iWorld
Facebook rolls out new suite of interactive ad solutions
MUMBAI: 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 Facebook India director and head of global marketing solutions Sandeep Bhushan.
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 behaviour is unfolding across our family of apps. Already, 60 per cent 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 The Creative Shop at Facebook APAC creative strategy lead May Seow.
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, personalised 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.
These are ‘Poll Only’ that will enable advertisers to interact with their target audience to drive brand lift; “Poll plus Watch & Browse” that will enable advertisers to capture peoples' preference for personalized journeys on their websites; and ‘Poll plus Watch & Install’ that will 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.
iWorld
Banijay Asia’s The 50 tops OTT charts with 8.1 million JioHotstar views
Reality competition becomes most watched show on JioHotstar in debut week.
MUMBAI: Fifty contestants walked into a palace, but millions of viewers showed up for the drama. Reality competition The 50, produced by Banijay Asia, has emerged as the most watched show on JioHotstar, clocking 8.1 million views in its debut week. The figure, reported by Ormax Media, places the show at the top of the OTT viewership charts and marks a strong opening for the digital reality format.
Adapted from a popular French format, The 50 brings together 50 personalities from television, digital platforms, music and reality shows inside a grand palace setting. Over the course of a 50 day competition, participants form alliances, compete in unpredictable tasks and navigate eliminations as the field steadily narrows.
Guiding the game is a mysterious figure known as The Lion, an unseen game master whose voice introduces twists, challenges and strategic turns throughout the show, adding an extra layer of suspense to the contest.
What distinguishes The 50 from typical reality competitions is its audience driven prize structure. Instead of the winner taking home the final reward, the prize is awarded to one of the winner’s registered followers through the show’s dedicated app. The mechanism effectively turns viewers into participants, allowing fans to have a direct stake in the outcome.
The contestant lineup features a mix of television actors, reality stars and digital creators, including Karan Patel, Urvashi Dholakia, Divya Agarwal, Mr Faisu and Dushyant Kukreja, each bringing their own fan following to the show.
With its blend of celebrity personalities, strategic gameplay and interactive viewer participation, The 50 has quickly carved out a strong foothold in India’s digital entertainment landscape. Its 8.1 million views in the opening week underline the growing appetite for large scale reality formats designed specifically for OTT audiences.
