Facebook has announced the launch of 'Slideshow', a video creation tool and advertising format which it says will help advertisers tell brand stories in emerging and high-growth countries.

The new advertising format is available to businesses that do not have resources to create videos according to the social networking service.

Nunu Ntshingila, an advertising veteran appointed as head Facebook's Africa office in July, says Slideshow will benefit consumers and marketers alike.

"We are constantly working to build ways for people to connect through Facebook regardless of connection speeds and device types. This also means helping marketers reach people in the best way, and that means creating solutions to make this possible in different environments."

Facebook says Slideshow's way of putting together a lightweight video ad made from a series of still images has already been used by Coca Cola in Kenya and Nigeria.

The softdrink manufacturer ran a video ad to raise awareness of a new season of their show, Coke Studio Africa.

Facebook Africa has confirmed that the Coke Studio Africa campaign reached 2 million people.

Ahmed Rady, marketing director for Coca-Cola Central, East and West Africa says his company was pleased with the results and the increase in awareness of their advert.

"We are pleased with how the Facebook slideshow campaign performed across our key markets in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Kenya. The campaign over-delivered on reach by one million and had a 10 point increase in ad awareness in Kenya. We recognise that our consumers may have constraints when accessing video content, hence the slideshow option by Facebook is spot on in enabling us to still deliver impactful and quality content."

Although it is hard to make out how this product differs from traditional powerpoint slides in any big way, Facebook Africa emphasises that a 15-second slideshow can be up to 5x smaller in filesize than a video of the same length and the smaller file size helps advertisers reach more people regardless of device or connection in addition to a reduction in data costs.