When a company such as Facebook hits $12.5 billion in annual revenues, up 58% year-over-year, sustaining growth becomes top priority.
Last quarter, mobile ads accounted for 98% of Facebook’s revenue growth. Keeping the momentum going means capitalizing on new markets — places like India, Turkey and Kenya. In other words, emerging countries where many people skip the traditional computer in favor of smartphones or feature phones.
A new Facebook program announced this week called Creative Accelerator helps brands like Coca Cola, Nestlé and Durex advertise in these places, which in turn, may boost the social network’s mobile ad revenues.
“The ability to tell a powerful story can connect people despite geographic, linguistic, technological and even cultural boundaries,” said Melissa Oppenheim, Creative Accelerator’s program manager.
Creative Accelerator’s tech knows how fast or slow a user’s Internet connection is, which is key since many mobile users in those markets have slower 3G or even 2G access. The program also lends its know-how to help brands identify which ad campaign ideas will perform well in those countries.
In Nestlé’s case, the food and beverage company worked with Creative Accelerator to generate mobile Facebook ads for its dairy creamer in India. Starting in January, Facebook users in the country with faster connections were served a 22-second, sound-free video; users with slower connections more often got still-image ads of the same product.
Likewise, Durex turned to Creative Shop for its condom ads. Since rolling out the campaign last December, Durex saw a 4-point boost from mobile users who intended to buy its product afterwards, and a 3-point increase for users who would recommend Durex products.
“The biggest learning for me — and this is overwhelmingly true — is that technical limitation is not a limitation of cultural sophistication,” said Mark D’Arcy, Chief Creative Officer for Facebook’s Creative Shop. He contended that creativity is not limited by bandwidth or by any one phone a person owns.
Creative Accelerator at its core makes it easier for brands to connect with Facebook users. Oh, and it’s free.
That effectively jibes with Facebook’s occasional altruistic efforts. Internet.org, a much-hyped `service backed by Facebook that Zuck himself launched in 2013, has the audacious goal of bringing affordable Internet access to everyone on the planet by working with mobile companies to make access more efficient, affordable and ubiquitous.
It’s currently up-and-running in six countries — Columbia, India, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana — and has helped over 7 million people access health, employment and local information services, free of charge. Facebook wants Internet.org to be in 100 countries by the end of 2015.
To be clear, Creative Accelerator and Internet.org are two very separate services with very different audiences: One is aimed at people who don’t have Internet access, the other targets people who already have it.
But if the two share anything, it’s that neither are 100% altruistic in nature, despite proclamations that Facebook wants to “bring connectivity to the world.”
Let’s face it: Facebook isn’t a non-profit. It’s an awfully ambitious, fast-growing, 9,000-strong corporate giant that generated nearly $12.5 billion in annual revenues last year with no plans of slowing down.
More people getting online — with or without Internet.org’s assistance — begets more potential Facebook users. And a larger user base means advertisers spending more ad dollars — even better if those ads were made and served up to far-flung countries, thanks to services like Creative Accelerator.
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Source: Mashable