Facebook Ad Campaign Will Urge Users to Stream Live Video
September 29 2016 - 4:45PM
Dow Jones News
By Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc. plans a major ad campaign, including TV spots and
billboards, to encourage more of its 1.7 billion users to stream
live video on the social network, according to people familiar with
the matter.
Facebook Live, launched in April, has been adopted by many major
publishers and public figures, some of whom are paid millions of
dollars by Facebook to produce a specified number of live videos
every month.
With this ad campaign, Facebook hopes to win over ordinary
users, who don't live-stream as often, the people said. The
campaign, developed by Facebook's in-house ad studio called The
Factory, will incorporate clips of live videos posted by the social
network's users to explain how the feature works. The idea is to
"show people what's possible" on Live, one of the people familiar
with the campaign said.
Facebook rarely advertises on TV. Its last campaign took place
last year.
The new ads underscore the importance of live video to Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg's effort to refashion the social network
into a "video-first" company.
It isn't clear how much Facebook plans to spend on the ad
campaign or when it will begin.
The Factory is run by Scott Trattner, a former Apple ad
executive who worked on some of that company's major campaigns,
including those for the iPod and iPhone.
With Live, Facebook allows its users to broadcast their lives
with a tap of a button. To ensure a steady flow of live videos
after launch, Facebook agreed to pay more than $50 million to 140
publishers and public figures to broadcast live, The Wall Street
Journal reported in June.
Users are automatically notified when a friend or publisher they
follow goes live and those videos appear higher in their news feeds
while they are broadcast.
Live videos also have thrust Facebook into controversy. Facebook
briefly removed, then restored, video from a Minnesota woman
showing her boyfriend, Philando Castile, dying after being shot by
a police officer. It also aired videos of the fatal shooting of
Dallas police officers and a French terrorist holding a child
hostage.
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 29, 2016 16:30 ET (20:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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