Facebook Films Say Face Life In Groups

So does social media make you more social? Has it enriched and enlarged your interactions and friendship database? Or has it turned you into a phone-prodding hermit who’d shun a night down the pub with analogue people in favour of sitting home alone trying to reconnect with someone you snogged at school who now lives as a monk in Ulan Bator?

The argument rages on and is not for here, but what is indisputable is the power of the group vs. the individual, and if hooking up with a like-minded group near you is facilitated by social media that can only be good. Hence the Facebook Groups function, Groups Discover, has launched these 18 short animations which were created by the social media giant's California-based in-house creative studio, The Factory, in collaboration with Nexus director Nicolas Ménard, who not only helmed the series but helped to design and develop the films, too.

The delightfully perky, bitesize animations – boasting bold compositions and a cracking sound design – wittily outline all the good things that happen when you are in a group, such as accessing real-life help and fun events, as well as receiving online advice and support. The films concentrate on three audiences – new parents, parents of pre-schoolers and college students, with micro stories that cover topics ranging from planning playdates to making tough decisions.

London-based Canadian director and graphic artist Ménard says: "It was a fun challenge to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end in the shortest amount of time possible. The instinctive approach was to think of these as animated GIFs but these scripts were fully-fledged stories!”

Facebook's Factory says: "Each script highlights a specific benefit of Groups Discover in a playful, abstract way. And because the campaign lives exclusively in Facebook feeds, we tailored the creative to that environment; they’re brightly-coloured, under :15, formatted to 1:1, and made to work silently.