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.

Neilson Global Marketing Report 2022

The 2022 global annual marketing report was released recently. This report surveys marketers across various industries in media globally to understand the behaviors with data. Here are the key pain point take aways from the report.

1. Expected budget changes:

   1. High increase of social media to 53% of budget

   2. 50% increase of display online/mobile budget

   3. 49% increase of video on online/mobile

   4. 37% increase on OTT-TC/connected-TV

2. Top marketing objectives:

   1. Brand awareness as most important

   2. Customer acquisition falling in second

   3. Customer retention third most important

   4. Customer advocacy

   5. Competitor conquest

   6. Churn reduction last

3. Beliefs on what positively influences campaign performance:

   1. Audience targeting comes in at the top

   2. Ad creative second

   3. Audience reach is third

   4. Data quality

   5. Personalization

4. Importance of diversity and CSR initiatives:

   1. 67% of DEI in marketing efforts

   2. 65% in content where ads are purchased

   3. 65% in vendor selection

   4. 68% in marketing effort as a company

   5. 68% environmental and social governance in marketing efforts

Brand awareness efforts, social media spend increases, DEI/CSR initiative importance and audience targeting are the ley take aways from the report. To read the full report click HERE.

Trending Video Marketing Investments

As we always say here at Locomotive, video content is King! It continues to be the top way to market to brand audiences. However, there are so many different styles of video marketing to consider now, so what types are brands investing in this year? Here is a quick list of our top three trending video marketing styles that brands are investing in.

1.     Short-form video. According to HubSpot, 58% of marketers use short form videos. Out of all video types this one provides the best ROI. Short form generally means anything under a few minutes. It should also be noted that the average engagement for short-form videos is around 50% (Wistia).

2.     Social media video. 93% of social media marketers say that it’s a vital component of their strategies and 85% of consumers say they want more videos on social from brands according to  Sprout Social. Give the people what they want and watch your return on investment increase.

3.     Long-form video. Long form video can be anywhere from 3-6 minutes long. One would think that longer videos see less engagement but that’s up for debate. YouTube is a great example of where longer form videos excel with a high ROI. Long form video creation has increased by 446% for videos between 30-60 minutes long and 228% for videos between 5-30 minutes long (Wistia).

Video marketing will always be the top way to achieve and retaining a successful marketing strategy for your brand. If your brand isn’t already investing in the power of these video marketing tools listed above, get on it quick. Staying up to date with current trends will keep you at the top of your game! And remember, User-Generated Content reigns.

The Rise of Interactive Advertising

Did you know that there is a term called ad blindness? It is a term to explain the phenomenon in response to how people have begun to cope with being subject to constant advertising. People have developed a coping mechanism to subconsciously and sometimes consciously tune out advertisements. In fact, 82% of Gen Z skip or ignore ads completely according to A List Daily. You can check out our article from yesterday on tips to make your advertisements more engaging but there is another kind of ad emerging that seems to increase engagement; interactive advertising. Actually, interactive advertisements have been shown to increase consumer attention by 47% and 32% more memorable according to a study conducted by Magna Global. So, let’s talk about some different types of interactive advertisements.

1.     Playable ads. This type lets the viewer get a taste of what it is like to use their product. Examples can be viewed HERE.

2.     Interactive films. A few movies on Netflix have done this now. It gives the users the options to make certain choices for the narrative giving them control of the how they experience it. Bandersnatch is a great example. We have actually participated in this interactive film.

3.     Interactive display. These expand when clicking or rolling over when viewed on a website. When it is expanded it will reveal the interactive advertisement. Visit this website for some examples.

4.     Augmented reality. Think of filters in social media apps. A great example of this is Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo lens on Snapchat that allowed users to turn their heads into tacos. Here’s an interesting take on it.

5.     Interactive voice. These literally speak to the user and engage with them verbally. It allows the user to respond to their voice activated device. You can read more on this HERE.

6.     Interactive video. This can be prompted through polls or trivia, such as on Facebook and allows for real time interaction with the brand audience. People love trivia and they love answering questions about themselves. Wieden + Kennedy created a beautiful ad in this type of interactive space.

Interactive ads might be the advertising of the future. With this new and creative way to engage consumers, marketers have unlimited possibilities to generate higher brand recall, increased engagement and ultimately generation of conversion rates will go up. These ads will keep your audience guessing what type of crazy ad you will come up with next. Encourage your creative team to expand their minds in order to create interactive advertisements that will keep your target audience coming back for more for years to come!

Silent Video

“Silence is a source of great strength”

-Lao Tzu

Imagine that you’re in a quiet work environment. You get on your phone to look something up. As the page finishes loading, a loud blast of sounds starts coming through and you fumble to get your volume button pressed down to zero. We’ve all had this happen to us. It’s disruptive and it affects people negatively. Turns out that 66% of people hate it when ads automatically play with sound on according to an article by Teads. In response, advertisers are trying to mitigate this by producing ads that begin to play automatically without sound. Since outstreamed videos are going to become a thing of the future, advertisers should focus on silent plays with captions. According to Facebook, captioned video ads increased views by 12%. Ads should be able to convey an emotional message without the use of sound. This can be done with the use of motion graphics and text within the campaign. This new trend will be a way for advertisers to use their creative license to make videos impactful despite not having any sound.  We’re certain your team has the creative abilities to do this but here are some quick tips to get you started on ways to make your silent spots stand out and perform well.

1.     Use bold visuals and/or animations. This will help catch the viewers eye and keep them engaged. It’s also very visually striking to see good fonts and animations that blend well together within your brand’s signature look.

2.     Use Call to Action buttons. Make sure to insert in a way that it is natural flowing. You can even run tests before it launches to see where it receives the most clicks. CTA buttons are imperative to getting conversions. Using a download button seems to yield the best lead results (HubSpot).

3.     Subtitles. If your brand feels it won’t be able to get its point across 100% without sounds then subtitles can offer a lot of relief. Facebook now offers a feature where you can automatically add captions to videos.

4.     Write unconventional scripts. This is always a fun way to entice viewers to keep watching your campaigns. They’ll want to know what is about to happen next. I know I always appreciate a good creative ad that keeps me on my toes or just completely blows me away with how unconventional it is! A prime example would be the recent OutHorse Your Email Campaign for Visit Iceland.

5.     Share your offers/discounts early in the ad. Since attention spans are shorter and shorter each year, you want to get the most important message out first. Research suggests that you have about 10 seconds to hook, line, and sink em’!  

6.     Be short and concise. Again, for those in the back who didn’t hear. Attention spans continue to lessen so it’s important to make your campaigns shorter than 60 seconds. The ad must also grab the attention of the audience immediately in order to keep them engaged in watching.

7.     Don’t ditch the audio. Sometimes people do still listen to ads with sound on. Be able to convey your message without it but really drive the point home with the audio on. Make that emotional connection deeper with your audience.

In the words of the infamous Will Rogers, “Never miss a good chance to shut up!” This is definitely one of those times! A time for advertisers to harness the opportunity to creatively grow through the rise in popularity of silent ads is here. Let your campaigns say a lot through saying nothing at all! Happy creating!

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.

Personalized Advertising

We all know the eerie ad that pops up while scrolling through the gram based on a conversation you just had with a friend. This is what is called a personalized advertisement. Companies are investing a lot in this type of advertising now but should they be? Personalized advertising works by using online user data to target users with relevant advertising based on their searches, purchasing history, and now even face recognition to determine the users age, race, gender, etc. Let’s face it, we know that our phones are listening to every conversation that we have. That is definitely some Big Brother stuff. So, what do the numbers say about these types of ads? Well, “companies that use advanced personalization see returns of $20 per 1 cent!” according to a statistic on Startup Bonsai. Therefore, from an advertising standpoint it does have great ROI. However, people do find it creepy when they see a retargeting ad on social sites for items that they have browsed, 35% to be exact (Startup Bonsai). And according to Pew Research, “68% of people view online targeted advertising negatively; they’re averse to targeted ads because they don’t like having their online behavior tracked and analyzed.” BUT, in that same breath, people do want their consumer experience to be somewhat personal and actually, “60% of Millennials said that they would not hesitate from sharing personal information to suit their personal interests” (RRD). It seems to be more of an issue of having their personal information taken without consent in order to tailor their consumer ad experience. Let’s look to Netflix as an example. Users have the option to thumbs up or down the shows that they watch in order to receive a more personalized recommendation to their likes and dislikes. Consumers like this feature because it is of their own accord. That being said, Google has a strict policy regarding personalized advertisements that restricts the use of sensitive interests, clinical trial recruitment, gambling, and more. What is the solution here then? We honestly don’t know but personalized ads do seem to have more ROI than non-targeted advertisements. Although people don’t seem to love the idea of their data being taken and analyzed, they do prefer a more personalized approach when it comes to brand advertising. Seems that some middle ground should be determined in order to please consumers and advertisers alike. We may not know what that looks like just yet but hope to see some compromises in the coming years surrounding privacy.  

DEI in Advertising

One of the biggest challenges that marketers face today is making sure that their brand embraces DEI. If you don’t know what DEI stands for it is diversity, equity and inclusion. After several recent movements, society has embraced new ideals that include DEI and it’s extending into the advertising world. People want to feel that they support brands that align with their values now more than ever. 83% of millennials to be exact, according to the Consumer PR Culture Report. Brands have to include all people of any gender, race, age, sexual orientation and economic status. This means that every type of individual will need to be featured in their content. But this is not all. Companies must take stances on social issues and build diverse teams behind the scenes as well. First and foremost, brands must talk the talk and walk the walk. Taking action is the only way to ensure that your company is actually practicing DEI. We will touch on a few ways to get you started. 

1.     Always be learning. No one likes a know it all anyway. If the brand is always curious about new ideas and trends it will be in the know about what is important.

2.     Embrace diverse holidays and traditions. This will help to immerse the brand and its team in different cultures they may not be familiar with. 

3.     Make sure you have a diverse team. This will also ensure a more creative team. Many different kinds of ideas come from different backgrounds and cultures. This will keep the spark alive so to speak when it comes to creation. 

4.     Look at other brands for inspiration. See what others are doing to create diverse campaigns. 

5.     Take a position. It won’t be easy but difficult things that are worth anything, never are. Make sure your agency is showing up to social issues that are current. Your audience will thank you for it and it will build more authentic trust.

6.     Lastly, and most importantly. There must be diversity in the campaigns. This one we feel should be a given but we wanted to touch on it nonetheless. 

The key takeaways from this article are DEI is an important topic that’s not going away. And why should it? It’s helping us create a better world to live in overall. Brands need to make sure that their teams and campaigns include diverse voices. If the brand aligns with their audience’s values trust is created. People want to support brands that they have something in common with.