Facebook bets on emerging markets with the internationalization of the Facebook Studio Awards

The social network is internationalizing the Facebook Studio Awards in the aim to eliminate cultural bias and present itself as a global ad platform. In its bet to grow the business outside the U.S., they are restructuring the awards to acknowledge advertising from outside North America. For this edition, Facebook Awards will implement a regional classification system that will acknowledge winners in each category from each one of the following regions: North America, Latin America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. Afterwards, the winner from each region will compete to determine the global honorees. The idea, according to Facebook’s executives, is to ensure that all the works are first judged in their own cultural context to offer them the possibility of attaining international recognition to the pieces from emerging countries. “We want to bring people into the evaluation process from those countries that can evaluate the work on an even playing ground, to make sure that they at least have a fair shot to be celebrated when they deserve it” said Jason Fournier, Facebook’s Marketing Manager, Creativity and Brand.This year the award will have new categories, including Small Businesses, “for those small-business owners that have earned effective eye-opening results” Fournier explained.The move comes as Facebook puts increasing focus on emerging markets, both among consumers and advertisers. Nearly half of Facebook´s ad revenue came from North America in the third quarter. Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that the next billion will come from regions outside North America.