Facebook Rolling Out Mobile Ad Formats at Cannes

Facebook-Mark-Zuckerberg-f8-carouselThe Cannes Lions advertising festival is kicking off in France this week, with many of the industrys best and brightest in attendance. Chris Cox, Facebooks chief product officer will be taking to the stage on Tuesday, and his presentation is expected to include the unveiling of new ad formats for Facebooks mobile apps.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new ad offering will include the ability to create a fully-branded interactive environment within Facebook, with advertisers able to add features like full-screen video, rich media, product information and more.

With almost three quarters of the companys ad revenues coming from mobile these days, mobile is Facebooks biggest concern and its primary focus, but with advertisers always looking for better, more immersive ways to connect brands and consumers, the firm cant afford to rest on its laurels.

The new formats are likely an attempt to attract higher rates and bigger names to Facebooks advertising ecosystem, particularly the sort of brands who traditionally rely on television for their ad spend.

The formats will be entirely mobile-first, and take advantage of natural interactions that are native to the smartphone experience, with interactive features that utilise swipe, scroll and pinch movements.

Because of the richer nature of the ad experiences available, advertisers will be able to host more content within Facebooks ecosystem, much like the firms Instant Articles. This will improve load times and responsiveness, while also providing Facebook with more customer data it can transform into analytics and improved targeting.