Facebook introduces new ad tool Canvas

The full-screen, immersive mobile ad tool, launched internationally, loads almost instantly when someone taps on any Facebook news feed ad.

The social media platform Facebook has announced the release of a new advertising tool called Canvas. It is a mobile-only experience and works on both Android and iOS. Canvas was built within Facebook and so it loads faster than the standard mobile web. Advertisers can build ads using a mix of video, images, text and call-to-action buttons through the tool.

A company statement says, "We're committed to building great mobile experiences for people and doing so also opens up new creative possibilities for advertisers. We've invested in engaging experiences like video and the carousel format to empower advertisers with more creative space to share their brand and products on mobile. The website that opens after someone clicks on an ad is often slow to load and not always optimised for mobile, creating a disjointed and frustrating experience for people. And, website pages are only growing in file size. In 2015, the average website page was three times bigger than it was in 2011, and slow load times are a top reason people abandon a website."

Chris Jones, head of creative technology, Facebook Creative Shop, says, "We made the the creative community a priority when we designed and built Canvas. It's a product that represents our commitment to creative craft and delivers the best mobile experience for businesses and people."

Over the years, Facebook has gradually emerged as a marketing tool and on top of it, it is also fairly well understood that the maximum time people spend online is on their mobiles and now, on the Facebook app. In that context, the main hurdle for advertisers is how uniquely they can build their brand and product stories on mobile in ways that attracts more audiences.

According to the trends observed by the company, advertisers needed a better way to share information after people click on their ad. The information offered after someone clicks needs to load quickly, looks good on mobile and allows people to take action easily. Canvas has been built to mainly tackle this problem. It is designed to help businesses tell stories and show products on mobile devices in a different way. Starting today, the tool is available to advertisers around the world.

Canvas helps advertisers by giving businesses a customisable digital space to build multimedia stories on it. It opens from Facebook ads in news feed to reveal a full-screen experience where advertisers can use a mix of video, still images, text and call-to-action buttons to build their brand and product experiences on mobile.

It has been noted that on an average, people spend 28 seconds to explore their Canvas.

The social media platform has tied up with brands such as Coca Cola, Burberry, Lowe's, Asus and L'Occitane for the initial roll-out of the tool. Coca Cola built a Canvas that featured the newly-launched special series of its aluminum bottle. It reached nearly 16 million people and had an average view time of 18 seconds. Burberry used the tool to build a mobile-friendly and interactive holiday gift lookbook. Similarly, Asus created a Canvas with the theme 'End bad gifts' during the 2015 holiday shopping season.

L'Occitane created a Canvas that told people more about it sources ingredients and how its products work. Lowe's wanted to connect with young homeowners about easy and trendy home do-it-yourself projects.