Shopping can be extremely challenging, especially online. The development of e-commerce has allowed customers to have a more personalized experience shopping online using augmented reality (AR). But given how influential social media networks are nowadays, Facebook decided to offer advertisers an opportunity to use Facebook AR ads to attract new customers and make shopping even more convenient.
During its F8 developer conference that took place earlier this year, Facebook announced that it was working with different companies to enable users to show off different products using Facebook’s app Messenger. However, Facebook has now taken the next step in ecommerce development, by allowing Facebook AR ads to appear on the News Feed, where a selected group of advertisers will put their AR ads into testing.
“People traditionally have to go into stores to do this,” Ty Ahmad-Taylor, vice president of product marketing for Facebook’s global marketing solutions said. “People still love that experience, but they would like to try it at home – so this “bridges the gap.”
According to the company’s blog post where it announces the innovation, these Facebook AR ads will look just like every ad that we normally see on Facebook. However, it will come with a “Tap to try it on” button, which will enable you to literally try some product on with the help of AR features and your phone’s camera. If person like how they look wearing or using some offered product they will be prompted to continue shopping.
The first brand that accepted Facebook’s invitation was Michael Kors, bringing AR ads that enable people to try different models of sunglasses on and buy them if they like them. Other brands include Sephora (that is known to have its own AR app called Sephora Virtual Artist, that allows users to try on makeup and buy it if they like it), as well as NYX Professional Makeup, Bobbi Brown, Pottery Barn, Wayfair and King that are planning to conduct their own tests later this summer.
Facebook Video Creation Kit
Aside from Facebook AR ads, the company also announced the Video Creation Kit. With this tool, advertisers will be able to use already existing images in templates to create mobile video ads. The weight loss company Noom, as per Facebook, is testing these tools, with videos that performed 77% better compared to the static images.
“We’d seen a growing need for a solution that could help us quickly and efficiently scale our video efforts on Facebook. Using the Video Creation Kit we were able to upload existing static assets and turn them into mobile-optimized videos through the use of Facebook’s ready-to-use templates. Using the videos created from this toolkit has resulted in a 77% increase in performance compared to the original static assets that ran on Facebook,” Noom was quoted on Facebook.
Moreover, Facebook said that 79% of consumers are rather fond of watching a video in order to learn about some product than read text on a page or blog.
That way advertisers will be able to create attention-grabbing video content to attract customers with original and trustworthy products and services.
