Facebook creates new roles in bid to exploit growth in video marketing as ad revenues soar
Daniel King and Kenny Griffiths
Facebook Australia has appointed a head of video as the social platform looks to drive video advertising revenue and exploit increasing demand from marketers.
Kenny Griffiths, co-founder of Volt Media, will take the role with a remit to “collaborate with brands and agencies and help them drive awareness and growth” through Facebook.
In a further move, Facebook has appointed former Mediacom group director Daniel King as its head of media planning. Both the video and media positions are newly created roles.
The appointments come as Facebook posted a 43 per cent increase in global advertising revenue in the second quarter, rising to $3.83bn. Mobile revenue climbed 74 per cent on year and now represents more than three quarters of total advertising revenue.
There was no local breakdown of figures although Standard Media Index figures show Facebook agency revenue grew almost $43m last financial year to $101.6m. The figures does not include direct spend by clients.
Ellie Rogers, head of agency Australia and New Zealand, said: “Facebook video is now a growing part of the broadcast pie. More and more CMO’s and agencies are talking to us about their challenges in using traditional broadcasters to reach their audiences. Over the last year the number of video posts on Facebook has increased by over 50% in Australia.
“We believe that our scale provides a solid solution to the industry’s challenges around reach, whilst at the other end of the spectrum our targeting capabilities can reach real people and measure all the way through to the store. To respond to this demand we have created these two new roles.”
Last week Facebook signed a deal with three offline data providers as it strives to offer advertisers a deeper insight into consumers.
Facebook said its number of video views has surpassed four billion per day worldwide, with 65 per cent taking place on mobile.
In Australia the social media giant said 50 per cent of Australians on Facebook watch video on the platform daily and on average spend more than an hour streaming video on Facebook each month.
Facebook Australia has just completed a video road show across Sydney and Melbourne, with planners and buyers attending 34 video boot camps.
Steve Jones
