It started with user posts, but now Facebook is slowing caving in to GIF ads that will allow brands to feature moving and flashier banners for their company’s products. It will capture the eye or certainly bother it to the point of annoyance, but the end result remains to be seen.
What is clear though, is that after a long time of resisting it, Facebook is taking a step forward into support the moving GIF images that have taken over the internet within the past couple of years. They’re fun and have a certain charm that plain pictures simply don’t, and a more interesting way of conveying a message.
While now found among most web communities, forums or websites, GIFs have seen a long standing battle until they broke through to Facebook, likely due to the worry that it would slow page load time. However, we have taken a step forward into the age of technology and we no longer have to find the end of the rainbow in order to reach a decent internet connection.
That worry is slowly becoming erased, so the popular social media networking platform is following in suit with the trend. First, it allowed users to feature GIF images in their posts, which has been a highly popular choice among most of its 1.4 billion users. Now, it’s making the same option available for advertisers.
It might not be as good of a news as it was for the average users. However, Facebook is starting to display tiny, moving banner ads in its ‘Boosted’ Page posts, and might be broadening that spectrum with time. It likely depends on the number of brands who want to explore that option and responses coming from their over a billion users.
It could be impacting to their experience, as not many frequently find a use for ads. In fact, a good majority have stated to find it quite dampening on their pages, but it’s an understandable consequence of growing popularity of any internet platform. Even video sharing websites such as YouTube or Twitch have been experimenting with the way they feature ads.
According to the popular social network, they will be observing the wonder of GIF ads on only a few Pages before potentially rolling out on more, and they’ve already started. Two companies have placed their moving ads to gain the attention of the public and likely to serve as the experimentation phase of Facebook.
Wendy’s salads and Coca Cola’s Kuat are now featured in GIF ads for users to see in all their flashy glory. It’s now to be decided if it will improve user experience or the number of clicks on ads, or if it will be widely ignored by most.
Image source: tubefilter.com
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