Facebook plans to sell TV-style commercials on its site for as much as $2.5 million a day, according to a Bloomberg report. The world’s largest social-networking site, with 1.15 billion members, expects to start offering 15-second spots to advertisers later this year.
The move would follow efforts by Facebook’s online rivals to capture ad dollars that have traditionally gone to TV networks.
With Facebook, the idea would be to capitalize on the millions of users who actively check the site on a daily basis, including during the prime-time hours coveted by television advertisers. As of last quarter, 61% of Facebook members were using the site daily — a number that has risen despite management predictions that it would decline.
RBR-TVBR observation: We wonder why it took so long, actually. Video ads are common now throughout the industry. Pandora has them; YouTube’s new video channels with content partners have them; AOL’s HuffPost Live has them as well. FB may have held back a bit on them when “Facebook Fatigue” was setting in and its active user numbers were dropping, but that has stabilized and they’re going after the money. Expect a “New Front” from them next May…
