It’s no coincidence that Facebook is planning to enable 15-second video adverts- we at The Practice predicted that Instagram’s successful launch of its own 15-second video feature was likely to have a knock on effect. But with news that the social media site might charge companies around £1.6 million a day to advertise on users’ home pages, will this development truly take off?

We can expect to see the launch of un-skippable “television” quality video ads, and if the news is anything to go by- with a typical TV advert price tag too. For those wishing to display video adverts, the price is determined by how many of Facebook’s 1 billion users a brand wants to reach, and of course how many ads a company wishes to run. Therefore it’s large TV advertisers who are likely to be Facebook’s target audience, and with digital video ad spend set to triple over the next 4 years, the social media site definitely stands to take home a share of the profit from having big brands on board. Currently, companies can choose to embed video ads in posts, although only users who subscribe to the advertiser’s feed can view these, therefore restricting audience numbers significantly.

Despite the high charges placed on brands- (which might even be as high as £2.5 million for a day’s run of adverts), we have a hunch that this new feature will be highly successful. After all, static display advertising already generates approximately 1.6 billion dollars annually for the social networking site. In terms of global digital ad revenue, Facebook currently takes only 5%, hugely falling short of Google’s 33%- however it’s this stark comparison that shows how much Facebook stands to gain when video advertising takes off. Secondly, since the launch of Graph Search, there’s never been a better time for brands to advertise based on the understanding of their customers’ habits and wants, all in real time too.

So what should we expect? Video adverts will be limited to 3 per day, account for approximately one out of every 20 post updates, set on auto play and showcased at the top of a user’s feed. Targeted users will be able to play the videos when they scroll over them, with the option to expand the interface and view up to two further related videos. It seems though that Facebook is still testing additional software it wishes to incorporate, meaning that video launch won’t be scheduled until mid October this year. The delay is also necessary as Facebook plan how to successfully negotiate the line between generating as much revenue as possible with minimal disruption to the user experience. eMarketer principal analyst, Debra Aho Williamson states that “[f]rom a business perspective, Facebook would want to roll out this type of advertising more quickly, but they have to weigh that against how their users feel.” “Facebook has to be really careful about not overweighting the news feed with advertising,” she added.

Do you think video advertising is set to bring exponential success for Facebook? And as a consumer do you think that the increase in adverts appearing on your feed will be an annoying addition? We’d love to hear your opinions, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and comment via our Facebook page.