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Facebook sells $7 billion worth of ads a year. Turns out it can make some pretty slick ones, too: Unlike that weird, properly mocked “Chair” ad it tried out two years ago, the spots in its new batch make plenty of real-world sense — Facebook helps you connect with your pals, so you can do cool things like take dancing lessons, run a marathon or plummet down a hill on a couch packed with attractive people while someone in a frog suit (?) cheers you on.
A sampling of the spots, created by Wieden + Kennedy, still best known as Nike’s ad agency:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKOrL31AOyw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcUuE60LcZ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZbQoVlGyTg
Why is Facebook advertising Facebook? For the same reason that every giant global brand spends a ton of time and money on advertising — to remind people that it exists.
The thing is, the only time you are going to see these ads is when you’re already on Facebook.
Facebook says the spots, which it has been rolling out for the past month or so, are only meant to appear on the site’s News Feed, which seems like the last place you might want to see them. This would be like a McDonald’s campaign that only ran in front of people who had already placed their drive-through orders.
Still, they are very nice ads. If you don’t want to wait for them to show up in your feed, you can see them all on YouTube.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
