Facebook to start automated captioning of video ads

Social media giant Facebook on Wednesday added new features for video ads on its website, which included automated captioning for sound-off videos and other updates to help advertisers use the platform better.

"Creatively, mobile video draws on the craft skills and experience we have developed as an industry building for film, TV and the traditional web and compresses them into a new form designed to immediately connect with an audience," Mark D'Arcy, chief creative officer, creative shop of Facebook, said in a statement.

The new tool generated captions for video ads and delivered them to the advertiser within the ad creation tool to review, edit and save to their video ad.  Among other updates, were reporting and buying options for video ads.

Advertisers would now be able to see the percentage of people who had viewed their videos with sound globally.

In a research Facebook found that when feed-based mobile video ads played loudly when people were not expecting it, 80 per cent reacted negatively towards the platform and the advertiser.

According to the findings, by including captions, advertisers could increase view time by an average of 12 per cent.

"Numerous studies and campaigns have made it clear that capturing people's attention at the very beginning of a video is the most effective way to advertise  in a mobile feed environment," Matt Idema, vice president, monetization product marketing at Facebook, said.

Advertisers, therefore, seek to capture the attention of their audience attention under 10 seconds. If advertisers could do that, the chances of the users watching the entire video were greater. And this was where captioning played an important role as captions were a fast and effective way to tell the user what the video was all about.

D'Arcy said, ''We call this connection the 3-second audition. This audition often takes place without sound so it's important we use typography, graphics and subtitles to communicate our story so it resonates anywhere, anytime.''