Facebook gets ready to take on TV in battle for ad dollars

After having carved out a big chunk of the mobile advertising market, Facebook is now preparing to go after the really big dollars: TV advertising.

It’s doing so with a slide deck, obtained by TechCrunch, that points out all the advantages Facebook has over TV (and it aims a few under-the-table kicks at YouTube along the way).

Television advertising remains a huge business, amounting to $70 billion annually in the U.S. alone, and as much as $200 billion globally. So far, advertisers have continued to pour money into TV commercials, despite the increased amount of time people spend online and the lack of direct targeting abilities or tracking data through TV advertising. But that is starting to change, with providers such as DirecTV claiming that 10 percent of its ad revenues now come from “addressable advertising,” or ads delivered over the Internet to specific television.

The key to Facebook’s video ad strategy is a three-phase approach: seed the market with a small initial campaign, blast the target market with a huge advertising spend, and then sustain awareness with a longer follow-on campaign.

Here’s how the presentation breaks down the three phases:

1.”Seed”: $50-$100/$200K hyper-targeted teaser to start generating buzz about your new product or brand campaign with your core target audience (e.g., using Partner Categories, Custom Audiences, Interests, competitor’s Interests)
2.”Blast”: $500K-$1M campaign to drive mass awareness of your new product or brand campaign to your target audience (typically over a 1-3 day period)
3.”Sustained” media: reinforce your message after the initial blast. You should tailor creative to specific audiences to drive the best results. These campaigns can range anywhere from a week to a few months.

The advantages Facebook touts over the broadcast and cable competition? Reach, the ability to target specific demographics, and results (people actually watch the videos on Facebook, apparently).

As for reach, Facebook has a compelling argument: The amount of time people spend online is increasing, and it shows stats from Nielsen and others that claim Facebook reaches 70 percent of people age 18-24 every day, compared to about 60 percent for each of the major TV networks.