Facebook Showcase offers upfront ad buys against premium video content

Facebook introduced Showcase on Tuesday, a new “premium” video advertising program. As part of the launch, the company bundled three of its existing ad products: In-Stream Reserve, In-Stream Reserve Categories and Sponsorships.

Why you should care

Facebook is positioning Showcase as a premium video advertising program aimed at helping advertisers reach younger audiences.

While the ad products that make up Showcase are not new, Facebook reported nearly 100 million U.S. viewers are watching In-Stream Reserve content on Watch, within their News Feed and on Pages each month based on Facebook’s internal data. The company also found, during the last three months, 43 percent of its U.S. viewers watching In-Stream Reserve eligible videos were 18 to 34-years old. This was a much bigger audience of younger viewers compared to Nielsen estimate’s that only 28 percent of the U.S. TV-viewing audience between August and October of last year were part of the same 18 to 34-year age group.

First launched last September, In-Stream Reserve ads must be purchased in advanced and at a fixed cost — the way of traditional TV buys. Ad placement is limited to “premium” video content with in-target audiences verified by Nielsen. The In-Stream Reserve Categories allow advertisers to choose ad placement based on relevant content verticals, including sports, fashion and beauty, entertainment, food and news.

Show Sponsorships offer Facebook video advertisers the opportunity to be the exclusive sponsor for Watch programs with U.S. viewers.

More on the news

• As part of the Sponsorship ad opportunity being rolled into the Showcase platform, Facebook announced two new original shows: a comedy series titled “Human Discoveries” starring Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick and a “reimagined” version of MTV’s “The Real World.”
• While Facebook’s In-Stream Reserve Categories first launched five months ago, the “food” and “news” categories are new according to Facebook’s announcement.
• Last October, eMarketer estimated video advertising would account for 25 percent of the total digital ad spend in 2018, with Facebook earning the most video ad revenue, bringing in $6.81 billion by the end of the year.