Video Content Consumption Trends

What’s the main reason you watch video content? Is it to be entertained? To escape from your daily life? To learn about a new brand or product?  If you said any of the above, you’re not alone. The answers from most people are all of the above. Turns out that 32.8% of consumers watch videos to help them relax and unwind followed by 26.3% who want to be entertained or laugh, according to HubSpot. Video content has changed so drastically since the creation of the internet. It’s really hard to believe that it’s only been around for 30 years or so. Wrap your mind around that for a second! Video content now rules the web, so how is it changing today? First, it has become the most dominant form of entertainment and people have become reliant on it. 26% of consumers rely on social video platforms to find out about products according to Channel Factory. Another thing that has changed recently is that production value matters more and famous people matter less. According to HubSpot, 36% of consumers say production value is somewhat important and 28% say it’s very important. A Google survey showed that production value ranked #10 in terms of importance and famous actors ranked all the way at the bottom as #20 to consumers. Lastly, short-form video! Screaming it for those in the back. Between 1-3minutes is the optimal time for videos to catch your audiences’ attention and keep it. Any longer and you risk losing them. In the advertising world, we all know that video content is king. Keeping up with trends will keep you brand successful in its marketing and advertising strategies.

Contextual Advertising

While writing our blog about Google’s announcement of their 3rd party cookie phase out the term contextual advertising came up as a possible solution. We found this topic worth digging into a little. Contextual ads are placed on web pages based on the content of those pages. For example, if you’re reading an article on Yosemite an ad for hiking boots may pop up. This keeps the user’s data privacy in tact while still getting the right information in front of the right audience. Contextual advertising relies on the relevance of its keywords, topics, and images so it’s important that the agency be very clear on these things.  It also doesn’t need 3rd party cookies that are required to collect data for behavioral advertising. Some numbers even suggest that “45% of publishing executives saw no significant benefit of behavioral ads versus contextual and 23% said that behavioral ads actually caused a 23% decline in revenue” (Forbes). It seems that this type of adverting may even be more cost efficient according to a study done by AdAge. This just validates that there are good reasons to shift to this type of ad space as privacy laws get stricter in the coming years.

Outstream Video Advertising

A new popular topic of discussion in the advertising world is out streamed video ads. This is expected to be a new trend in the following years as opposed to in stream video ads. So, what’s the difference? Well, let’s start with what an in-stream video ad is. These ads are inserted into a video that is already being played. In stream ads require a static video player and they can be viewed as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll. A.K.A. Before, middle, or after what the viewer is already watching.  These tend to be somewhat of an annoyance and are usually unrelated to the content being played. We’ve all been through the, “your video will play after this ad” situation on YouTube before. Now, let’s talk about what an outstream ad is. This type of video ad does not need a static video player. It exists solely in of itself. It is the video and the player all in one. It’s also called in-read due to the nature of how it’s triggered to play on websites (Giant Media). A viewer will reach the “trigger” point on a site and the video will begin to play. For example, at the end of a paragraph, the video will be inserted onto the page and begin to play when the reader reaches this point. The reader can then either watch the ad or keep scrolling to get back to what they were already looking at. These types of ads are maximized to be more relevant to the content that the viewer is looking at on a webpage. This ensures a higher success rate of views than instream because with in stream ads, they play on videos that tend to not have much in common with their product. Also, these video ads do not require video players and show up in non-video environments outside of YouTube (NuSpark Media). Another positive for these outstreamed ads is that the advertiser only pays for viewable cost-per-thousand impressions. Agencies only pay if 50% of the ad is viewed for 2 seconds or more of continuous video play according to Google Ads Help. 

            Alright, let’s recap what we’ve learned: 

Instream Video Ads: 

·      Require video player to be present 

·      Play before, during or after video content 

·      Usually, the user has to wait for ad to be viewed to see or continue to see what they were already there to watch…. Actually, when given the option, “37% of people say they will skip the ad as soon as possible and 20% say they will skip it in 5 seconds or less,” according to a study done by Hubspot.

·      Difficult to target the market audience they are looking for…. Unrelated to what the viewer is already watching.

Outstream Video Ads: 

·      Don’t require a pre-existing video. Can be inserted into basically any web page. 

·      Easier to target the right audience because the advertiser will know which sites their ads will go on. An ad for an unhealthy snack won’t be inserted into a webpage that has to do with fitness. You get the idea. 

·      Video will be triggered to begin when the reader reaches a certain point on the site

·      Will stop playing when scrolled past so the viewers have more freedom of choice. 

·      Advertisers only pay if the ad is actually viewed!

It seems obvious why outstreamed advertising is superior to instream at this point. You can target the correct audience more efficiently. You only pay if the advertisement actually viewed. Outstreamed ads don’t annoy the viewer nearly as much as instream and it gives the audience more freedom of choice. We expect to see less instream ads in the coming years and more outstream ads in the digital space.