In 2016, Rafael Guida left Brazil to join
Facebook as Head of Creative Shop, Southeast Asia. He says lots of people still
ask him today: “Why did you leave agency life for Facebook?”
On stage at ADFEST 2018, he explained why
he made the leap. It hasn’t been an easy transition – the rules for telling
stories on Facebook are constantly in flux. The technology is always evolving
along with Facebook’s own policies. It’s also a ruthless platform – we’ve
become so used to swiping content that doesn’t immediately grab us, which means
creatives now have as little as two seconds to get their message across.
Guida joined Facebook to see if he could
crack the art of storytelling for mobile formats.
For decades, radio, print and TV changed
minimally, allowing advertisers to master storytelling on those platforms.
Mobile on the other hand, changes constantly. Facebook alone now has over 240
formats, and it’s always trialling new ones from live photos to 3D posts, while
also moving into products and technology.
Broadly speaking, there are three
narratives that shape the stories we tell: immediate, interactive and
immersive. Facebook has formats that fit each of those narratives, and at
ADFEST 2018, Guida showed examples of each.
There were immediate ideas, like ads
featuring cats licking screens, which are designed to capture our attention in
seconds. He singled out Apple and Google as great adopters of Facebook’s ad
formats that deliver immediacy.
Not long ago, our industry would have
thought it was impossible to tell stories in two seconds. But Guida is a fan of
2-second storytelling: “It’s still fun, it delivers the message, it’s straight
to the point – it is possible.”
But is it possible to tell emotional
stories in under two minutes on a platform like Facebook? The platform does
feature some long, beautiful, immersive stories, but the fact is our attention
spans are shorter than ever. So he encourages agencies to create short
versions, too. These are useful for recall, or as teaser campaigns.
He moved on to showcase interactive
advertising using Facebook Live. A great example is a campaign for IKEA, which
worked with BBH Singapore to create an amazing recording of a girl named Yanjaa
Wintersoul (a two-time world memory champion) who has a photographic memory of
the IKEA catalogue.
She memorized the whole catalogue in two
weeks – all 328 pages featuring thousands of products – and was then invited to
Facebook Studio to add a Live element to the campaign. She became famous, and
news of her incredible memory spread all over the world.
Originally from Brazil, Guida graduated in
Digital Design and has worked across advertising agencies in Sao Paulo, Dubai,
Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong for the past 13 years. He presented ‘Hacking Mobile
Storytelling’ on Thursday 22 March at ADFEST 2018.
- If
you attended ADFEST 2018, you can view the online sessions archive here.
