We are in the video advertising age without a doubt. But apart from beating the clutter and standing out we also have a challenge with the limited attention spans of today’s consumers. Marketers are wondering how to showcase brand purpose, promise and offering in a limited six-seconds world, but while we are all obsessing about video lengths and what we should be saying, how do we really ensure that the consumer is even listening?
The consumer’s needs and wants have to be at the heart of our video planning. As an industry,
we have been saying this for years. The means of achieving this are many and ever-changing. Relevant targeting, contextual placements, video lengths and formats and engaging content all help towards crafting a consumer-first video strategy.
While there are many emerging trends within the realm of video marketing, we have considered three trends that will have a higher impact in the coming year.
Trend 1 : Hyper-personalised video content fuelled by adtech
Research shows that there is an average 66 per cent increase in brand recall due to personalisation. Creating video ads based on audience profile and optimising them based on video consumption patterns is the basic rule in today’s video planning. The next stage is hyper-personalisation. With the help of AI solutions, just like dynamic banners, brands can create dynamic videos. These videos can be customised based on audience profile and what viewers are currently consuming. Our “picky consumer” can now be more receptive to this relatable brand communication. In addition, AI can be used to process huge amounts of data and make precise predictions. The quick turnaround time means we no longer have to rely on longer-duration A/B testing, which costs the campaign time and money.
Challenge: Adding adtech might mean increasing media costs. But setting fixed delivery and ROI KPIs (based on campaign objectives and historical brand data) before testing with a pilot campaign budget will help better evaluate effectiveness of these additional media costs.
Trend 2: Consumers are now creators
In today’s day and age, reality is proving to be more appealing than fiction (as evidenced by the increasing number of biographies and documentaries on Netflix). While it is sometimes challenging for brands to create “real content”
that is more than just a sales pitch, user-generated content (UGC) helps solve the problem. UGC has always been a buzz word, but users today are increasingly becoming video content creators themselves with the likes of virtual video studios such as TikTok at their disposal. These platforms have also ensured that users are now well-versed with immersive AR and VR elements. Brands need to exploit this ecosystem and become enablers for this new breed of video editors. They can give them tools to showcase their creativity. In turn, users will disperse this branded content willingly to their network of followers, creating efficient reach for
the message. Considering lower assimilation rates of brand videos, this will help break that barrier.
Challenge: Not all socially generated content has the ability to go viral and it means brands have
to hand the baton over to the consumer. So it is essential to come up with an idea that is true to the brand as well as user behaviour on the platform.
Trend 3: Online streaming on the big screen
While there are conversations about multi-channel approach, brands also need to be conscious of the multi- screen approach. Digital video planning has been moving towards planning video efficiently for smaller and smaller screens, thanks to excessive time-spent on mobile. While we have been caught up in this bubble, the big screen has reinvented its place in our digital universe through connected TV (CTV). This adds an opportunity for brands to programmatically distribute video on the big screen as well. What this means for a brand is that while there may have been some loss of impact due to shrinking screen sizes we can now add more wide-screen AV quality to our digital plans while serving branded video content based on the user’s profile and interests. This in turn helps increase message retention. Marketers can now overcome the spillover of traditional TV advertising as well. The advantages also include presence on a brand-safe environment and 100 per cent viewability, eliminating below-the-fold ads of other digital platforms.
Challenge: CTV is still no competitor to the reach of linear TV or other high-reach digital platforms in our region. But it can be useful to consider it as a premium and impactful channel to be added in our video-planning strategies.
Brands and planners will always have KPIs to hit when it comes to planning. The holy grail of video planning is still video views, completion rates and engagement. But emerging technology will help us achieve these KPIs while driving a customer-first experience and true views.