Facebook Is Launching A New TV Ad In The US, And Thankfully It's Nowhere Near As Weird As The Last One

Facebook is launching an advertising campaign in the US, across TV, outdoor, cinema and online on Sunday that is aiming to get Americans to use its standalone app Messenger in more creative ways.

The TV spot, created by ad agency Wieden + Kennedy is far less weird than its bizarre - and widely-ridiculed - 2012 "Chairs are like Facebook" effort.

"Say Love You Better" tells the cute story of a couple as they exchange cute messages, audio, pictures, stickers over the Messenger app, all to the soundtrack of a ukelele version of Elvis' "I can't help falling in love with you." The company is testing the campaign in LA and Chicago first to see how people react, before a wider national rollout.

It may seem odd that Facebook, the most popular social network on the earth, with the third most-downloaded messenger app (behind Skype and WeChat, according to Statista) needs to spend money on advertising itself.

But this ad is all about getting people to think of using Messenger differently and for all the things you might use other apps from: no need to send your photos via Snapchat or your stickers on LINE - you can do it all here.

The US ad launches this weekend, shortly after Facebook launched its first ever campaign for the Japanese market (also created by Wieden + Kennedy).

Now of course Asia is a region where Facebook does have more threats to its dominance, and it needs to raise more awareness. In Japan, Mixi (an invitation-only over-18s platform) is the market-leading social network with 25 million users last year, followed by Facebook with 16 million users, according to Digital Strategy Consulting.

The TV, online and outdoor campaign is based on the idea that the most important thing you can be in life is someone's friend.