• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 17, 2014

Scrolling through your Facebook news feed now, you might find some video advertising -- just like on TV. But wait. There’s no sound. No identification. Nothing.

It’s a 15-second commercial, a bit of video messaging that kind of looks a lot like TV, interrupting your social media consumption.  Your favorite marketer is waiting with bated breath, to see if you decide to keep watching and are lured into some compelling video action -- entertainment-driven or otherwise.

Is someone selling a Swiffer with a video on Facebook? Not that we can tell -- but maybe there is some dramatic action yet to come to suck us in. Facebook says it is using Ace Metrix to help assess how each video do is doing, creative-wise.

It’s perhaps not a coincidence that Facebook, in touting its new video advertising service, is using a movie commercial -- from Lionsgate’s upcoming highly touted “Divergent,” a kind of “Hunger Games” wannabe.  

Research has shown movies are an excellent product for video commercials, because the advertising message itself comes directly from clips of the movie.

Overall, though, 83% of Facebook users recently surveyed said they would find video ads “intrusive” and would likely “ignore” them.

Hey, just like with ads on TV shows.

For years, TV networks have toyed with the idea that the “A” spots, those placed first in a commercial break -- get the best results and thus should be the most valuable.

TV sellers also like the idea putting the better commercials in the lead -- to retain viewers. Many point out that movie commercials would do that trick.

Facebook says it made a few “select” deals overall with marketers for its video advertising in news feeds.

Video speaks volumes: Every marketer loves video messaging -- and, of course, so do the media sellers. But for many feel this just looks and sounds like TV -- just your plain-Jane marketing disruption.

Creative execution? It’s about consumer execution -- which isn’t much of a change from how those consumers interact with TV.

Facebook says it is monitoring the new effort carefully.

Forget about that! Maybe Facebook should do what traditional TV will increasingly do with new digital video content: disable the “commercial skipping” function. Then the fun will really start.