Report: Facebook preparing to launch TV-style video ads for $1 million and up

By Cory Bergman 

Facebook has stepped up its social TV efforts over the last few weeks, and now there’s growing evidence the company is planning a video ad product aimed at capturing TV dollars. Bloomberg reports that Facebook will roll out 15-second video ads priced between $1 million and 2.5 million sometime later this year. The ads will appear in a user’s news feed, and they’ll be priced on a per-day basis with age and gender targeting, the report said.

Earlier this month, Facebook provided data to Trendrr to underline its social TV footprint: Facebook has 5 times more TV-related social activity than any other social network combined, according to Trendrr’s single-month report. Then last week, COO Sheryl Sandberg emphasized the company’s reach. “Every night, 88 million to 100 million people are actively using Facebook during prime-time TV hours in the United States alone,” she said.

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Combine these announcements with Facebook’s foray into hashtags and the recently-redesigned news feed, and it’s starting to add up to a strategy to capture a slice of TV’s massive advertising budgets. Ad Age’s earlier report about the video ads says they’ll silently roll when users “mouse over” the ad, and they’ll expand and play with audio when clicked. Ad Age says the launch as been delayed from this summer to October, and Bloomberg reports that Zuckerberg delayed the launch “to make sure Facebook’s user experience won’t be tainted by the ads.”

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