Facebook's 'Thumbstoppers' will redefine video storytelling in less than 10 seconds

Facebook India has launched ‘Thumbstoppers’, an initiative to redefine short-form mobile video creativity in India. This initiative is in partnership with leaders from the advertising industry — Wunderman Thompson, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, McCann and Mullen Lintas — to transform storytelling for mobile advertising.

Mobile has fundamentally reshaped consumer behaviour; people consume as well as recall content faster on mobile. With declining attention spans, one has just a few precious seconds to get the consumer's attention as traditional advertising formats of 60 and 30 seconds don't work well on mobile. As mobile becomes pervasive, there has emerged an ardent need for marketers and creative agencies to create mobile-first ads. The industry needs to embrace the possibility of stories that stop thumbs from scrolling, evoke emotions, and change human behaviour, can be told in under 10 seconds. That is the premise of 'Thumbstoppers - Short stories move hearts.'

With this initiative, it’s the first time that the most prominent creative leaders of the country have come together on the same platform to transform and pivot the industry to embrace creativity for mobile.

The initiative sees the participation of Sukesh Nayak, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy India, Senthil Kumar, Chief Creative Officer Wunderman Thompson India, Rajdeepak Das, Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett India, Garima Khandelwal, Chief Creative Officer, Mullen Lintas, and Ashish Chakravarty, Executive Director, and Head of Creative at McCann Worldgroup (India).

These key partners will spearhead change at their agencies, and eventually for the industry. In partnership with Facebook, they will support the skilling of their teams, helping them understand and think mobile-first, and execute short-form videos more seamlessly. Thumbstoppers will see experts from Facebook visiting top agency offices to empower them with the required skills and education to create effective short-form video campaigns for their clients.

Speaking at the launch of the Thumbstoppers campaign in Mumbai, Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of Global Marketing Solutions (GMS), at Facebook India, said, “Advertising on Facebook has driven significant business results for all our advertisers, large and small. The opportunity now is to drive the impact even harder with storytelling built for mobile. Facebook's Thumbstoppers is our partnership with the creative agencies to inspire and showcase short stories that evoke emotions in under 10 seconds."

At the launch, Facebook also released a few Thumbstopper films with an objective of inspiring the creative and marketing community, and to display that powerful storytelling is possible in less than 10 seconds. The entire campaign is based on the brief of driving 'behaviour change', which is the purpose of all advertising. The films are created by Wunderman Thompson and cover a wide spectrum of human behaviour. These stories also showcase how mobile videos offer a diverse canvas by being distinct to other mediums — the importance of grabbing attention in the first few seconds, viewed on vertical often with sound-off, and delight with sound-on.

As a follow up to the campaign launch, Facebook is also throwing open a 'Thumbstopper Challenge', an invitation to all creative minds to submit their short stories on the brief of driving behaviour change in less than 10 seconds by July 12. The winners will be announced in August, and the top winners will get to travel to Cannes next year. Facebook will also produce the top 20 films. The key partners on this initiative will serve on the eminent jury for the challenge along with Gaurav Jeet Singh, General Manager, Media, South Asia at Unilever India, and Rashi Goel, VP Consumer Communications, Media, and CRM at Nestle.

Senthil Kumar

Senthil Kumar, Chief Creative Officer, Wunderman Thompson, said, “Short stories move hearts. It takes only a few seconds to show support, break down barriers, display kindness, start a movement or express that love has no boundaries. Our campaign created to launch Facebook Thumbstoppers is a mobile kick-starter of sorts. The idea is to demonstrate that storytelling can happen in a short and sweet span of 10 seconds. Exploring this telegraphic short format in the mobile medium is important because of decreasing attention spans and growing impatience. Each of these films tells a story that has some underlying purpose or human truth in it. Much like advertising for brands, these films also use drama, emotion, suspense and humour to tug at your heartstrings.”

Thumbstoppers is the first initiative to be rolled out as part of Facebook Creative Playground, an industry-wide capability-enhancing program led by Facebook that is geared towards building the advertising ecosystem in India in partnership with leading creative agencies. Facebook will work closely with these partners to collaborate on a range of initiatives and skilling programmes that will enable the agencies to explore a wide range of cutting-edge digital brand solutions.

Contest details and submission link: https://fb.me/fbthumbstoppers

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