Facebook Tests Ads Packaging Video, Comments

Inside Facebook pageIn its latest experiment with social advertising, Facebook has launched new ads combining in-banner video with the ability for members to post comments visible to friends on the social network. 

The video ads occupy the new "sponsor" placement on the right side of the home page that Facebook introduced as part of the site's recent redesign. A Facebook spokesman said the new features are part of ongoing tests of different interactive features for ads in that space.

The Inside Facebook blog on Thursday spotlighted one of the new ads being used to promote the newly released comedy "Tropic Thunder," which users can click to launch a video clip and add their own comments to. The banner also contains a positive blurb from a review by Pete Travers in "Rolling Stone."

Another video ad is running for the upcoming thriller "Eagle Eye," starring Shia LaBeouf.

Facebook declined to say what advertisers are testing the new ads, which are being shown only to a portion of users in the new site design. It also isn't saying when, if at all, ads with the new user-generated functionality will be offered to advertisers widely.

The social network has unveiled a variety of ad initiatives in the last year as it seeks the right formula for monetizing the myriad conversations and interactions among its 132 million members worldwide.

By far the most controversial has been its Beacon ad program, which sparked a privacy backlash last year over ads that let members know about their friends e-commerce activity. Only this week, a class-action was filed against Facebook in California for violating members' privacy through the Beacon program.

Facebook also offers Social Ads, which allow marketers to pair their brands with relevant social actions by members.

Questions surrounding the ads that invite user comments have less to do with privacy than advertisers' willingness to accept possibly negative feedback undercutting marketing messages.

Inside Facebook's Justin Smith said in a post Thursday that while he saw a few "'Lame!'" comments about "Tropic Thunder," "the ad comments powerfully take advantage of Facebook's social dynamics to draw attention to an ad in a way that is impossible without the social graph."

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