The Creative Council, convening for the first time on 21 June at the 2012 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, comprises 14 top agency representatives:
- David Droga, Founder/CEO, Droga5
- Nick Law, CCO, R/GA
- Jeff Benjamin, CCO, JWT
- Colleen DeCourcy, Founder/CEO, Socialistic
- Linus Karlsson, CCO for Global Brands, McCann
- Mike Lazerow, Co-Founder/CEO, Buddy Media
- Rob Feakins, CCO/President, Publicis
- Mark Tutssel, CCO, Leo Burnett
- Amir Kassaei, WW CCO, DDB
- Mark Waites, CCO/Founder, Mother
- Toshiya Fukuda, CEO ECD, 777
- James Hilton, CCO, AKQA
- Rob Reilly, CCO, CPB
- Tor Myhren, CCO, Grey
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“This council is meant to be the counterpoint to the Facebook Client Council launched last year,” explained Facebook agency marketing manager Jan Kattula in a phone interview with Campaign Asia-Pacific. “We’re inviting these creative innovators to sit down with us and have a dialogue about building creative innovation on Facebook.”
Facebook also announced the launch of Studio Edge, an online programme designed to keep agencies up to speed on the latest developments on Facebook.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with agencies around the world, and their biggest areas of concern with Facebook are a need to be inspired, as the ad formats are small and the creative canvas is limited, and a need to understand how to build on the platform, create a timeline and reach fans,” Kattula said.
Facebook moved to address the first concern last year with the launch of Facebook Studio, a site showcasing Facebook advertising case studies from agencies all over the world. This was followed by the Facebook Studio Awards, which were held in February.
“The natural next step for Facebook was to double down on education and relaunch the Facebook Studio site in July,” Kattula said. The revamped site will enable advertisers to join social communities on the site as well as allow individuals and agencies to list themselves on the site’s directory and showcase the work they’ve done, along with educational modules they’ve taken.
The educational modules are divided into three categories: Ads, Pages and Technology. Each module is designed to be flexible and social, not taking more than 15 minutes to complete.
As modules are completed, participants will gain badges on their Facebook Studio pages that will rank them as intermediate, advanced or experts—gaining them credit and recognition on site. To retain these titles however, users will have to keep up to date on Facebook developments, taking new modules from time to time as updates are rolled out.
“These modules are fairly light and will be quite basic at launch,” Kattula said.
The social plugin to the site will update news feeds when a friend takes a course, and agencies and individuals who have taken Facebook courses will receive rankings for those who have advanced the most. Agency rankings draw cumulatively from employees in the programme.
Facebook Studio Edge is free but will be gated at launch, with invites sent to selected members of the industry. Individuals wanting to be a part of the programme will be able to sign up to request access.
