Ad agencies should expect more out of Facebook in 2016, said Mark D’Arcy, CCO of Facebook Creative Shop.
With $3.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2014, Facebook has rapidly become one of the premiere destinations for the work created by advertising agencies around the world. But its increasingly cozy relationship with brands has also been perceived as a threat to the agency model. And for creatives and media buyers, figuring out what works on the platform can be something of a challenge.
D’Arcy, who has lead the internal Facebook shop since 2011, says the social network is determined to help agencies better understand and use Facebook as an ad platform in 2016. “The vast majority of the work we do is in partnership with agencies in every country in the world,” he said. He cited programs like Blueprint, Facebook’s marketing training program, as one way the social network can “take a lot of the things we’re learning and crafting everyday in the creative shop and really get it into people’s hands.”
Facebook has long sought to make inroads into the agency community, usually by giving creative shops a platform to discuss and celebrate their work that appears on Facebook. In 2011, the company launched Facebook Studio, a standalone community where agencies could discuss techniques for creating successful brand pages. That site eventually became home to the Facebook Studio Awards (later rebranded the Facebook Awards), trophies given annually to the brand and agency that create the most effective and engaging work on the platform.
This year, Facebook announced that its awards program would institute a global bracket system to increase the likelihood that advertisers and agencies from outside North America would be honored for their work.
This article originally appeared on DMN sister publication Campaign US. Watch the video on Campaign US for more on how D’Arcy and Facebook want to work with ad agencies in 2016.
