Facebook debuts ‘comment’ ad format

Facebook has launched its eighth ad format, dubbed the ‘comment’ ad unit, letting brands provoke debate from potential customers on the social network.


Designed by ad agency Leo Burnett, the ad encourages conversations around whatever content or questions a brand decisions to pose.
Brands can use the format to let users post photos, videos, links and status updates in response to their advert.
Starting as a question on a brand’s Facebook Page status, the Comment ad unit appears in the right hand wall of a Facebook Page as a “Sponsored Story”.
Questions brands plan to ask include, “How do you make summertime a special occasion?” (from greeting cards firm Hallmark) and “What is Your Mayhem?” (from US insurer Allstate).
If a Fan decides to contribute to the conversation started on the Comment ad the ad unit moves to appear on that Fan’s newsfeed.
Once there it can be viewed and commented on by all that Fan’s friends, regardless of whether they are already a Fan of the brand who is running the ad campaign.
Blake Chandlee, Facebook’s VP of global agency relations, said: “This unit allows a brand to introduce a conversation that can scale very quickly across our audience,” said, “This is a perfect example of how brands and agencies need to approach Facebook differently.”
The Comment unit was one of several submissions from Leo Burnett in response to Facebook’s 2010 call for submissions for new units that were “inherently social by design.”
Leo Burnett clients will have two months (roughly 60 days) of exclusive use of the unit.