Facebook is testing augmented reality ads in News Feed, announced on Tuesday as part of a drive to appeal more promoters to video ad innovations. Facebook’s executive Ahmad Taylor at an event in New York made the announcement to promote ways businesses advertise on Facebook during holidays.
By now, Facebook has only tested AR with Michael Kors and testing is only being held in the U.S. Michael Kors developed an ad experience that allows users to try on sunglasses using Augmented Reality effects. Facebook will continue testing with Bobbi Brown, King, NYX Professional Makeup, Pottery Barn and Sephora.
Ahmad claimed that Facebook would continue to introduce AR ads to other industries as well over the time. Right now the company is only working with companies having physical ads. Jess Jacobs, marketing director of Wayfair also attended the event said that AR has been on the list of company’s marketing strategy for several months and sees AR as a great way to move the customer through the funnel when deciding between several things. Wayfair in its iOS app introduced an AR feature that allows users to visualize how furniture looks in their home.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in F8 keynote said that the company’s main objective was to make the camera the first AR platform. The company announced last year that it was working with companies like Kia, Sephora, Asus and Nike to develop AR experiences in Messenger. The company claimed that Asus was able to capture 10 times more engagement with the ads that contained augmented reality than those without.
Facebook will continue to share engagement metrics as a means to attract more advertisers with AR ads. A survey conducted on more than 55 marketing executives by Boston Consulting Group on April 2018 found that businesses ignore AR advertising perceiving that it won’t help them to reach their audience at masses, and the ROI is still anonymous.
The company also stated that it is going to roll out shopping on Instagram to Stories. Shopping on Instagram that was introduced last year allows businesses to tag their products in organic news feed posts. Shopping on Instagram will be launched globally before the holidays. Ahmad Taylor said Instagram is launching Collection Format, allowing advertisers to make ads in the form of product catalog along with multiple videos and photos.
Moreover, Facebook is also set to launch a kit of video creation tools in ads manager. The purpose of it is to boost businesses to use existing assets to develop videos that are optimized for mobile.
