Facebook Selling Video Using ‘Target Rating Points’

Facebook is offering advertisers a new way to buy and plan campaigns that employ both video on the social network and TV.

The move comes as TV tries to defend its share of ad dollars from digital and social competition.

Facebook said that TV and Facebook complement each other, so it has created a new measurement that’s more familiar to TV advertisers who buy based on Nielsen ratings points. Facebook calls its metric target rating points.

“Marketers can plan a campaign across TV and Facebook with a total TRP target in mind, and they can buy a share of those TRPs directly with Facebook,” Facebook said in a blog post. “Then, Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings measurement system can verify Facebook’s in-target TRP delivery, and Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings system can verify the TRP delivery for Facebook and television combined.”

Facebook said putting TV and Facebook together works.

• Measured across 42 U.S. campaigns, when TV and Facebook were combined, advertisers saw a 19% increase in targeted reach versus TV alone. When Millennials were the target audience, incremental reach increased to 37%.

• Across the same 42 campaigns, Facebook impressions were two times more likely to hit their target audience than TV impressions. This means advertisers spent less to reach their target audiences.

• A study by Nielsen of seven recent campaigns showed that, compared to people who saw TV alone, people exposed to both TV and Facebook demonstrated a 3.2 percentage point increase in ad memorability, 11.5 percentage point increase in brand linkage and a 22.7 percentage point increase in likeability linkage.

Facebook said it is also offering new options designed to help advertisers looking to build brand awareness, as opposed to those looking for direct response.

“We’ve found that, when it comes to brand awareness, it’s not just how many people you reach that matters—it’s also crucial to break through and earn people’s attention. By analyzing hundreds of brand campaigns we found that the longer someone spends with an ad, the more likely they are to remember what they’ve seen,” Facebook said. “Brand awareness optimization will be available when buying in the Ads auction through our reach and frequency tool in Power Editor. It will be available this October as a limited release, with full availability in the coming months.”

Facebook is also working with research company Millward Brown Digital to measure brand lifts for mobile campaign using Facebook and Instagram through polls.

Video ads will also be able to employ Facebook’s new carousel format beginning this week. The video can be follows by images of specific models, products or usages.

Dentsu Aegis Network was the first agency to test the TRP buying tool in the US and UK with their clients.

"The role of marketing fundamentally changes in the digital economy and the discipline of media is becoming more central to brand and business success. Mobile video is a key point of disruption and the way we are innovating with Facebook to test and launch TRP Buying in the market is key to being able to pivot at speed to match dramatically changing consumer behavior,” said Nigel Morris, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network Americas & EMEA.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.