Facebook: Welcome To The Future Of Advertising

The future of advertising is something that has long been disputed among retailers, and while social media platform Facebook has so far succeeded in staying ahead of the curve, thanks to its ability in identifying trends early on and evolving to suit its user’s needs, the development of Canvas is perhaps one of its most ambitious and adventurous ventures yet.

Launched globally last night, Canvas is a creatively immersive full-screen mobile ad experience that claims to revolutionise mobile ads on Facebook.

Put simply, the service is a “beautiful ad in your newsfeed,” says the company’s product design manager, Jessica Watson. “Canvas creates ads that deserve to live in your newsfeed,” She adds.

Canvas was created by responding to the needs of ad agencies and Facebook’s creative councils – creating a service that returns the control back to the marketer.

So how is Canvas different? One of the main things that distinguishes Canvas from the previous advertising system on Facebook is the ease and speed at which it can be used.

At just one click away, the self-service tool allows users to explore different types of content – from video, images, text, and call-to-action buttons all within a seamless and clean framework.

As the service is also hosted native to the site, Facebook promises that it will take just under a second for the Canvas site to load.

While Canvas might improve the user’s experience, it also plans on transforming the way in which marketers use the service.

Advertisers own 100 percent of the pixels and can customise their story as they wish.

 “We expect [marketers] to take this platform and do whatever they want with it,” says Facebook’s CCO Mark D’Arcy.

The service is available internationally and runs on an easy-to-build software, without any prior coding knowledge. And the best bit of all for retailers? That companies will be charged the same price as a regular newsfeed ad.

So, look out for Canvas emerging on your newsfeed and see how you react to the new, interactive format or “short experiences”, as Facebook likes to describe it.

And if you're a marketer looking to explore more creative ways of marketing, have a go at creating a Canvas ad here