• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, May 22, 2014

No offense to top brands, but no one expects them to break the mold with Facebook video ads -- or, at least, not the marketing pros at OMMA Video on Thursday. Lesley Pinckney, Vice President of Interactive at Walton Isaacson, said we likely won’t see any truly innovative work until Facebook video ads become more affordable, and smaller businesses are able to join the party. That’s because, according to Pinckney, the smaller guys are free of the “oppressive [corporate] infrastructure” and constant creative “watering down” that so often stifles the big boys. Presently, however, Facebook isn’t making it easy for anyone to innovative with its new video product, Pinckney protested. In fact, she said she’d kill to ask Mark Zuckerberg, “Why the pressure to conform?” Rather that really thinking about what makes the Facebook environment unique -- and baking that into the new video product -- Pinckney said it seems more like “a blatant grab for TV dollars,” i.e., a little too much like the TV experience. “Why go where we’ve already gone?” she wondered.