After using the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as the launch pad for its Client Council, Facebook is using this year’s event to launch its new Creative Council.
The 14-member council, which has its inaugural meeting during the festival this week, is designed to be a “sounding board” for Facebook product ideas and agency needs.
The Creative Council is comprised of several industry heavyweights, including Droga5 founder and CEO David Droga, JWT chief creative officer Jeff Benjamin, Mother founder and chief creative officer Mark Waites and Linus Karlsson, chief creative officer, global brands at McCann Erickson.
Commenting on the formation of the Creative Council, Zak Mroueh, president and executive creative director at Zulu Alpha Kilo, said he believes it should have a positive impact on making the site more ad-friendly for agencies and marketers. “I don’t see a down side to having some of the most creative minds in business being engaged by the most successful social platform,” he said.
Facebook today also announced a new product called Facebook Studio Edge that it says will keep agencies abreast of its latest products and best practices. The program offers 10- to 15-minute videos – which Facebook called “interactive courses” – on everything from pages, apps and ads.
Facebook is also adding new features to the Facebook Studio site, including a directory highlighting both personal and overall agency listings that showcases both Facebook creative work and achievements earned via progressing through the Studio Edge modules.
The program is being soft launched to some of Facebook’s agency pilot partners in coming weeks, with additional agencies coming on-stream on a rolling basis.
