Facebook’s new ads target Super Bowl Sunday

Fox network may not be the only media outlet to charge $4 million for a Super Bowl ad.

Facebook may also be looking to cash in on the Super Bowl with its new auto-play video advertising, The Post has learned.

The new ad format is set to launch in a test phase on Thursday, though agencies say Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2, was blacked out from future schedules.

Vik Kathuria, global head of digital media investment at Mediacom, told The Post: “They’re looking for the highest possible bids. It’s like an auction or they’ll go to the biggest advertisers and say, if you commit this on an annual basis, we’ll give you this too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were asking $3 million to $4 million.”

Kathuria says Madison Avenue is thrilled with the development and expects Twitter will be close behind with something similar. “We’re pretty excited. It’s Facebook with 1 billion users, and reach is a huge part of how media is bought.”

However, he warned that agencies were unlikely to dip into TV ad budgets, and would rather re-allocate dollars in the smaller $5 billion digital video business. The ads are more of a threat to players such as YouTube, Hulu, AOL and Yahoo! “That’s where we’ll take it away, we’re not taking it from TV,” he said.