Each day, an average of 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook.¹ And it's estimated that mobile video will account for 75% of total mobile data traffic by 2020.² As people watch more video on mobile devices, advertisers have a huge opportunity to use video to connect with their audience where they are spending their time: on mobile and in their feed. But whilst advertisers consider investing more of their video advertising spend into mobile, many are curious about the right way to build video creative for the small screen.

Earlier this year, we shared some tips for video creative based on tests that we ran. We've continued testing and learning since then, and today we're sharing new insights and examples that add to our library of lessons about how advertisers can succeed with video in the mobile-feed environment. We are also introducing new features to make it easy for advertisers to plan and purchase adverts on Facebook in ways that align to how they have traditionally bought television adverts.

With more demand than ever for people's attention across screens, the opportunity for short-form creative is growing, and not just on mobile. Between 2010 and 2015, 15-second television adverts grew 3.4% year after year, whilst 60 and 120-second spots declined.³ So advertisers want to understand the right way to build short-form stories that resonate.

The best way to ensure that video creative works in the mobile-feed environment is to build with mobile in mind from the start. When you don't have the opportunity to start from scratch on mobile video assets, cutting, editing and reworking long-form video adverts can be a fast and effective way to create video adverts for the mobile feed. In early 2016, we tested this process on television creative with a few partners by making small changes to their television adverts to see if the tweaked adverts would connect better with their targeted audience on mobile. Then we ran their original television advert and the optimised version on Facebook and compared the performance of the two adverts.

Here are some early successful examples of video creative that we reworked for the mobile feed. We are continuing to experiment and encourage advertisers to do the same so that they can learn which video assets are good candidates for optimisation and which tactics can drive results.

The videos shown below play without sound, as they would in the News Feed.

We worked with Finish on its award-winning television advert by Wieden+Kennedy that told the story of how dishes are with us at every occasion in life. To tell this story on mobile, we pared down the advert's many vignettes to a single story, started with an engaging image of a smiling couple and moved the brand mention 25 seconds earlier. The mobile-optimised advert saw a 7-point increase in advert recall, a 68% increase in the number of 3-second views and a 136% increase in 10-second views, compared to the television advert that ran on Facebook.

Finish's original television advert:

Finish's mobile feed advert:

With a shared vision for experimentation and learning, we also partnered with BBDO to apply these simple and fast adjustments to selected client's existing television creative to optimise it for the mobile feed.

Wells Fargo's television commercial by BBDO San Francisco explained how easy it is to replace your debit card. To make it effective for the mobile-feed environment, we shortened the video, changed the aspect ratio to square to increase visibility in the feed environment, added text to convey the message without sound and moved the initial brand mention earlier. Doing so resulted in a 3-point increase in advert recall, 2x more impressions that reached the Wells Fargo branding section of the video and an 8-point increase in message association, compared with 5.7 points for the television advert.

Wells Fargo's original television advert:

Wells Fargo's mobile feed advert:

Wrigley's "Life happens in 5" television advert by Energy BBDO Chicago was about trying new things. To optimise their advert for the mobile feed, we cut the video from 15 seconds to 9 seconds, added visual messaging on the video title card and focused more on the count from one to five that's featured in the story. Whilst both the television advert and the mobile-optimised advert performed well on Facebook, compared to the television advert, the optimised video saw an 8-point increase in advert recall and a 7x increase in impressions that got to the part of the video that featured the "trying new things" message.

Wrigley's television advert:

Wrigley's mobile feed advert:

"At BBDO, we are committed to understanding the most creatively effective ways to tell our client's stories when using video on any given platform. We recognise that context is key. So in our latest experiment, we partnered with Facebook to see how we might be able to rework existing adverts for mobile news-feed environments. What we discovered is that there are ways to optimise existing assets to deliver increases in advert recall and message association. These lessons have reinforced our belief about the importance and opportunity of building for the medium and considering these options from the start." – Julian Cole, Head of Communications Planning, BBDO New York

In light of these test results, and in combination with new research from Facebook IQ on designing effective video adverts for the mobile feed, we've made some updates to our mobile video creative considerations. We've added a new tip on framing and revised our suggestion on experimentation to encourage advertisers to play more as they explore storytelling through video in the mobile feed. Here are our updated video creative considerations:

Creative is an important part of optimising adverts for the mobile-feed environment, but it's not the only consideration. To make planning and purchasing mobile video adverts across channels easier, today we're also introducing new TRP Buying features.

In September, we announced TRP Buying, so that advertisers could extend existing television campaigns to Facebook using a familiar currency: target rating points, or TRPs. Starting today, advertisers are now able to use US Nielsen-designated market areas (DMAs) through TRP Buying for Facebook and Instagram adverts, so that they can match the target market that they're reaching on Facebook to the ones that they're buying on television. Additionally, advertisers are also now able to purchase day parts, which are parts of the day during which advertisers want their adverts to be shown. Day parts are available in four-hour blocks (or greater) and help advertisers reach people at the time when their message will resonate most.

These test results and new features enable advertisers to build creative that works in the mobile feed and plan and purchase the campaigns that will bring their videos to life. We'll continue sharing insights, examples and new features for video adverts as we continue to test and learn.