In this article:
- The company formerly known as Facebook rebranded as Meta and just launched its first video ad.
- It’s not good.
The Meta commercial is finally here! If your response is “What?” or “Why should I care?” you have a lot in common with billions of people around the globe whose response so far has been underwhelming.
See for yourself whether you consider the scene of a group of teenagers pausing in front of a Rousseau painting in a museum that comes to life in 3D through the power of Meta as “fun.”
It’s not usually a good sign for a video to have to disable comments. And if we are to think about it as meta-commentary, it certainly does not bode well for a social network to silence the social chatter about its outreach through a social channel.
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What I did find to be a meta-commentary that was fitting was the puzzled look on the teens faces when the painting started to show movement. It reflects the way most of us feel at seeing the full video, wondering “Why are you doing this?”
Fast Company reflects that point of view in commenting on the marketing message:
The reality is that Meta is just one company working on the technological challenges of the purported metaverse, and even then, dancing around a Rousseau with your friends is still a long, long way off. Which means that this ad is a stylish but empty distraction that says absolutely nothing about the brand, the metaverse, or the vision of the company formerly known as Facebook.
The hope behind this marketing vision was that we’d be carried through to the end to joyously embrace being effortlessly immersed in a virtual world in the way the elements from the painting enter into the museum hall and surround the spectators. Or something.
But all that is disingenuous. In fact, you can’t experience the virtual meta world with your own eyes without a VR headset or its equivalent. Certainly, you are not going to walk around wearing one inside the real world because it obscures your view of what is, in fact, in front of you in the physical world.
No doubt this kind of reaction led many to put a thumbs down and negative comment on the video, which is why those reactions have now been disabled. Meta-commentary, indeed.
And, as for what this all means for Meta’s/FB’s long-term efforts to keep customers coming back and have a positive, meaningful relationship with the company, the jury is still out but the winds of the zeitgeist are blowing in a very clear direction.