We are now two years out from when Facebook launched its Live broadcasting product.
To put that in context, it took years for television advertisers to break out of simply running radio commercials, years for filmmakers to realize the medium could host more than just recorded stage plays.
So, for a medium that is just two years old, what is the current state of evolution in Facebook Live broadcasting?
Many brands have embraced the opportunities that live affords – at least, through the world’s biggest social network platform – but is there yet a playbook for what works and what doesn’t?
Justin Marshall, VP of emerging media at WPP’s POSSIBLE, is now getting a clearer idea.
After helping a client, Microsoft, promote its Microsoft Office suite to entrepreneurs using a Facebook Live Q&A with Nichole Richie, who was named Glamour’s Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2010, he has learned plenty about the best use of the system.
“We brought in people through a Skype feed to ask Nicole Richie questions,” Marshall says, in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“Microsoft still today looks at that as a great success because it really enabled it to gave back to the SMB audience in way that we had never seen before. It masters the medium in a way that I don’t see very often.”
https://www.facebook.com/Office/videos/10158507891910370/
Of course, Marshall doesn’t just see his own output as emblematic of the best use of Facebook Live.
He also cites Breaking2, a campaign created by Wieden + Kennedy for Nike in which the shoe brand live-cast an attempt at setting a mythical marathon record time, as a compelling template for the medium.
https://youtu.be/uvhSgxUdsdQ?t=29m43s
“That was a beautiful celebration and expression of something that had never been done before,” he says. “Do that.”
Summing it up, what should the approach creative agencies use when considering Facebook Live for a brand campaign? Marshall recommends:
- “Live should feel alive.”
- “It should feel that it’s being expressed through something that is interesting and compelling, and in the moment.”
- “If it’s not an event, or an experience that would draw people in, into an experience that they would otherwise not be able to see, don’t do it. Don’t do it just to do it.”
- “Find the interesting and express the interesting through live.”
This Beet.TV series, presented by Facebook and WPP, is titled Creativity in a Mobile First World. Please find more videos from the series here.
