You know that one episode of Black Mirror where everyone can’t even go to sleep without watching an ad that covers their entire bedroom? Well, we’re one step closer to that reality today, as Facebook has confirmed that ads will arrive in its app as part of Statuses (which are the equivalent of Instagram’s Stories) in 2020.
The social network made the announcement at its annual Facebook Marketing Summit in the Netherlands this week, and Be Connect digital marketing agency’s Olivier Ponteville was apparently on hand at the event, as evidenced by his tweets. He photographed several slides which showed what the ads will look like in the app.
As you can see in the photo below (shared by Matt Navarra on Twitter), the Status Ads appear to take up the entire screen, the same way a standard WhatsApp status would. But rather than show the name of the contact at the top of the screen, the name of the company is shown instead. You can swipe up when an ads appears for more information about the product or service being advertised, if you are so inclined:
WhatsApp confirmed that ads were coming months ago, so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In fact, the most surprising part of this announcement is that they aren’t already rolling out on iOS and Android.
In addition to the Status Ads, WhatsApp also showed off richer messaging formats for WhatsApp for Business users and the integration of the WhatsApp product catalog with the Facebook Business Manager catalog.
