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Facebook Advertises Facebook, on TV (Again)

Facebook wants advertisers to move their money from TV to Facebook. But it still likes to buy airtime now and then.

Facebook
Peter Kafka
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.

You don’t need a Facebook ad to tell to you use Facebook, because you and 1.5 billion other people use Facebook every month.

Then again, lots of people drink Coke and eat at McDonald’s, and those guys advertise a lot. So here’s a new ad campaign from Facebook, which debuted on TV last night for audiences in New York, Chicago and San Francisco (hello, influencers!), and runs through September.

This one ran during MTV’s VMAs:

And this one ran during AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead”:

If you don’t live in those three cities (or don’t watch TV), you can find more of these on Facebook, where they’ve been running for a while. They’re pretty good.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has bought airtime, but it hasn’t done it often (it is a big fan of “organic” advertising like the kind that Miley Cyrus did on behalf of Instagram during the VMAs).

Still, why is Facebook, which is gunning for TV ad dollars, putting money into TV? “We’re seeking to reach people at a variety of touch points throughout their day,” said a Facebook rep.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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