Why Meta Is Celebrating Small Businesses with a Personal Touch
A hotelier for pampered pooches, a rugged bushcraft instructor and a rocking drumstick brand are among the passionate small businesses featured in Meta’s new campaign ‘Discover More Of What You Love’. A continuation of its previous campaign, ‘Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found', the vibrant work gives real small businesses the high end advertising treatment in order to convey the power of personalised ads for small and medium sized enterprises. And while it’s a campaign that is all about the formidable power of data and personalisation, it’s also an idea with an emotional and playful heart. Developed by Meta’s in-house agency CreativeX and produced with STINK productions and director Kai Kurve, the snappy social posts convey the feeling of delight that consumers feel when they come across exactly what they didn’t know they were looking for.
Judith Huelshoff, EMEA marketing manager at Meta, unpacks the campaign and the way small businesses are making the most of Meta - and reveals the fun of collaborating with the companies featured.
LBB> Strategically, why was it important to focus on small businesses with this campaign?
Judith> We’ve been working to support over 200 million small businesses globally with new education and tools for many years, so this campaign continues our always on efforts. With this campaign, we want to highlight how personalised ads are an important way people discover small businesses on Facebook and Instagram, and are what help small businesses grow from an idea into a livelihood.
LBB> The campaign definitely captures that feeling of stumbling upon exactly what you didn't know you needed. What were the insights that drove that side of the campaign?
Judith> It continues to be a critical time for small businesses: according to our most recent State of Small Business Report, 20% of small businesses around the world were still not operational as of January 2022, and personalised ads are a proven tool that can help a business efficiently find new customers and grow.
In fact, 70% of UK SMEs using personalised ads reported that they were important in finding new customers and 67% said these ads were important to the success of their business.
From a creative perspective we focused on that moment of joy that consumers experience when they discover a new product or service that they had not heard of before but that just is right up their street - something most people are able to relate to.
LBB> The social films have such a great aesthetic - can you tell me about how you went about developing the look and feel of the campaign?
Judith> The creative is a celebration of small business ideas, and that moment when someone discovers a small business idea that perfectly fits their interests. Small businesses are ingenious, their products are unique and offer us things we never knew we needed, and personalised ads help consumers and small businesses connect. We wanted to find truly British businesses that are really unique across a number of interest areas that people could relate to - whether that’s pets, music, baking or adventure and science.
LBB> How did you choose the businesses to feature in the campaign?
Judith> The ad features real small businesses that use personalised advertising and Meta tools to support their businesses. We wanted to showcase a broad range of businesses to highlight different interests and passions people might have and show how personalised ads can help them find businesses that match those passions. Also we wanted these businesses to offer products and services that felt a bit like a ‘discovery’, something that people within that interest category would be pleased to find out about.
LBB> And what was it like learning how these businesses use and benefit from Meta's apps and platforms?
Judith> Certainly one of the most fun aspects! The Meta consumer and business marketing teams worked closely together to develop a campaign concept that is relevant to both consumers and businesses. Bringing the two perspectives together and hearing first hand from business owners how they have been able to grow and connect with their customer base through our platforms, even during challenging times like the pandemic, has been really great.
LBB> What were the most interesting challenges involved in creating this campaign and how did you address them?
Judith> Our videos are only 15 seconds long and within that time we wanted to highlight the unique aspects of each business, explain what they are about, while also showing the consumer joy in discovering a new small business idea - and of course do all of that in an entertaining way.
LBB> What do you think big corporations can learn from SMEs in terms of the way they use platforms like Instagram or Facebook?
Judith> All of these SMEs really know their customers inside out. They have very engaged communities and use their social media channels to manage communications and have an ongoing dialogue with their customers to build their business and incorporate feedback.
