What you need to know about video advertising

May 11, 2016

Conventional advertising relies heavily on the video platform because of its powerful story-telling framework. Hence, it becomes a powerful way of engaging consumers digitally, owing to the emergence of the second screen behaviour.

People are now increasingly reaching out to their smartphones to keep abreast of trends. The number of handheld devices has also seen a sharp increase in households whether it is a smartphone, tablet, laptop or a kindle. While it may prove tricky to reach the right target audience, with our enhanced toolset we can identify our target audience with a great degree of accuracy for different social networking platforms.

Advertisers have experimented with various forms and are now returning to the video format in order to build stronger brand engagement by connecting with audiences anytime and anywhere.

We compiled a list of what-to-do to make the most of the video advertising wave:

Length of the ad

The length of an ad can determine your viewers’ interest. To generate the right amount of interest, ads meant for the desktop viewers should go with video content that lasts around 2 minutes whereas viewers on their cell phones may spend as long as 5 minutes watching an ad. It helps to keep it short and sweet because of the versatility – people might watch them on desktops or on their smartphones when they are on the move.

The perfect script

Getting into video advertising takes a lot of research and planning. Tuning the content according to existing campaigns or innovative ideas that are yet to be implemented will ensure that your video stands out. As a business, one needs to keep professionalism in mind irrespective of the genre of advertisement that is chosen. After all, you do not want to go viral for the wrong reasons, do we?! Ensuring your video is scripted well and executed at the same level of proficiency is mandatory. Do not shy away from proven categories such as humour and emotion, but do ensure you aren’t trying too hard to fit it into your concept. Audiences are smart but they need to be approached in a manner that makes them feel good while also adding value to their lives.

In-stream advertising

In-stream video ads display content within a video player before, during or after a piece of video content. This is a great way to target niche audience segments already searching for video content to fulfil a need. Typically, 15 to 30second pre-roll video ads are used to display an advertisement before the main video begins. According to Google, these ads are most effective when focused on branding, as conversion rates are often lower than with other forms. Many in-stream ads can be skipped after five seconds, so convey your message quickly or make the introduction gripping enough for the audience to stay the full duration of your ad. Early call to actions and changing your TVC into a more digital-friendly adapt are successful tricks to adopt.

While video advertising continues to see an upward growth, there are a few trends that are enhancing the consumer experience and helping marketers find new ways to excite their audiences. Here’s a list of trends you can adopt in your strategy towards staying ahead of the curve –

Increased Emphasis on Branded Video Content

The value of branded video content is going to further increase dramatically, and this is largely due to the power of YouTube. The popular video publishing platform rakes in more than 4 billion views per day, making it the second most popular search engine in the world and the third most visited website. As traffic shifts away from traditional blog posts and towards YouTube channels and dedicated video blogs, a larger number of marketers will need to create content specific to the platform.

Branded video content is created with the intention of engaging users, providing value and presenting a direct and compelling call to action. Branded videos can range from interviews and behind-the-scenes footage to dramatic shorts and product promotions. In response to the rising demand for video content, brands have begun to turn their focus toward creating fresh content, and the best part is they don’t always have to start from scratch but can repurpose some of the existing content through a simple video conversion. Digital Marketers with basic editing knowledge and an eye for capturing moments are the need of the hour and are predicted to be the evangelists of the branded video content revolution.

Captivating background homepage videos

While off-site videos on YouTube and other publishing platforms are valuable, video content is migrating to homepages in the form of background videos and replacing the textual format of describing product or service. While the success of this feature is largely dependent on internet connectivity, brands such asAirBnb and Culture Machines have embraced this video form on their websites to truly showcase a story on who they are.

Animated GIFs as advertising mediums

As many social media marketers and avid users have recognized, animated GIFs and short videos became pervasive over the course of 2015. If you look at Twitter in particular, the majority of its best-performing content involves some kind of visual element. This gravitation toward visual posts is based on human preferences. With social media users averaging with an attention span of 8.25 seconds, most of them are averse to reading a detailed article or post when they have the option of a GIF or bite-sized animation that tells the same story in a shorter timeframe. Boomerang, Vine videos are also growing in popularity due to their ability to truncate content in short durations as our ad banners that are capturing attention through the usage of GIFs in them.

Storytelling through live-streaming

Known as real-time storytelling or live-stream social, these video platforms enable users to watch content live through a smartphone. While Periscope and Meerkat started the revolution of this new form of video content capturing, Facebook Live has been making waves through the ability to promote, create, save and innovative with the videos that are created. All of them offer the perfect blend of social media and video that progressive digital marketers have been looking for and has gained massive acceptance by brands in order to capture sneak peeks, product presentations, celebrity takeovers, live chats, behind-the-scenes footage, contests, and more.

RevitalizingTraditional Email Marketing

Though email marketing is still very much alive and effective, its power has waned in recent times due to the power of social media and mobile marketing techniques. Email marketing has evolved however to provide solutions with lesser text and direct video integrations that encourage recipients to interact with their brands. The key to successfully using video in email depends on the quality of the video and its length. Anything longer than three or four minutes tends to be overlooked.

Visual marketing is on the rise and video content seems to be satiating a need like no other. With the mobile advertising industry growing rapidly and rich media being lapped up by advertisers and marketers alike, the industry is ready for a MindShift in the way consumers are engaged and excited.

The article is written by Zafar Rais, CEO, MindShift Interactive.