Facebook Introduces “Anthology” To Cash In On Video

Yesterday Facebook announced another video milestone — 4 billion views a day. Today, Facebook introduced one of the ways it’s hoping monetize all that video watching.

Facebook is launching “Anthology,” a program that will pair brands with video publishers to produce video advertising for Facebook. The publishers will bring the technical and storytelling expertise and the brands will bring the cash. Last month, The Information reported that the minimum buy-in for Anthology will be $2 million. Facebook’s announcement didn’t include pricing details, but the product is clearly intended for brands with major marketing budgets.

Production will be handled by the launch partners, Electus Digital, Funny Or Die, Oh My Disney, The Onion, Tastemade, Vice Media and Vox Media. Facebook’s in-house creative strategy team, the Creative Shop, will also help the effort, as Facebook noted in a blog post:

Anthology campaigns begin and end with insights. For each Anthology campaign, the Creative Shop — Facebook’s in-house creative strategy team — partners with brands, agencies and publishers to provide audience planning, insights, distribution plans and measurement. Together, the Creative Shop and Anthology partners guide brands to build advertising content that resonates with people and drives business.

It’s a smart move for Facebook, which as Mashable’s Jason Abbruzzese noted on Twitter this morning is pushing further into the branded content game without having to directly produce the content.