Beyond the screen
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Video may not have killed the radio star but it certainly seems to be triumphing online. There were 971 million display ads placed around video during April in the UK as consumers logged on to be entertained by content on a variety of branded sites, social networks and blogs according to comScore.
The number of videos viewed online in the UK grew by 47% in the 12 months to April 2009 to 4.7 billion video viewings in the final month of the period. On sheer numbers, online video is booming at a time when other media channels like TV are losing viewers.
While the early days of using video online concentrated on repurposing TV ad content or broadcasting product information, brands are now being urged to think of web-based video as an entertainment channel that can create a conversation with consumers.
Jonas Jaanimagi, managing partner of business and finance ad network WebAds, says: “It should be about user engagement and branding and less emphasis on the response element.”
Jean-Paul Wevers, UK publishing director at video advertising network Smartclip, agrees. “Ultimately it will get to be seen as entertainment. It’s a very nascent business,” he says.
Women’s online magazine iVillage is looking at ways to incorporate Bebo-style branded content that appeals to its adult female audience. Lulu Phongmany, business development and marketing manager, asks: “If it works for a teenage audience, why shouldn’t branded content work for an adult audience too?
“Most of our users spend 10 hours a week or more online to do day-to-day things but they also want to be entertained online so the next step is looking at branded entertainment. We’re working with advertisers to see who is willing to take the next leap,” she says.
Some brands are taking timid steps towards online video that’s entertaining and brand led. But there’s a long way to go before this becomes a mainstream medium, says WebAds’ Jaanimagi.
He says even the “vanilla” or straight-laced brands in the finance world are attempting to jazz up their image through entertaining online video content. However, he believes there’s a way to go before agencies and brands stop obsessing with click-through rates and start thinking about video as a way to engage with a target audience.
“It will take a shift in focus for the ad industry to start developing truly beautiful video ads in the formats that users can engage [and] interact with,” he predicts.
One way of producing entertaining content that helps build brand values and entertain at the same time may be creating bespoke content. This is something most brands aren’t considering right now, argues Matt Isaacs, partner at digital agency Essence.
“Online offers an opportunity to create a completely different experience that combines the ability to entertain, like in a television format, with the ability for consumers to interact in a digital medium,” he says.
Nike is one brand attempting to use online video in a different way from its lavishly produced TV ads featuring superstar athletes. Nike Bootcamp is a digital service that features online videos about sports training that could never be seen on TV. It aims to engage people with the brand’s sports training programme on a far more frequent basis than they see ads. But Isaacs argues: “The number of brands being as bold as Nike are very, very few.”
Joel Cymberg, publisher and operations director for online media portal Glam UK, says web-based video has been stagnant over the last seven or eight years, but new life is finally being injected into the sector now that companies are focusing more on creating entertaining content.
He explains: “Being able to click on the video or film trailer doesn’t explore the benefits of the internet. I’m looking for – and starting to see –highly engaging and creative video.”
Glam Media is working on embedding video into any editorial content on its websites. Cymberg says this helps keep people on the site and placing videos among contextual content is commercially smart – it makes both the editorial and ads work harder.
Smartclip’s Weaver says brands that want to talk to age groups that are difficult to target on television, such as 16 to 34-year-old men, will be quick to adopt online video as an entertaining way to communicate.
It’s not just about making online videos entertaining but also appearing in the right places to reach people. Research from Harris Interactive suggests that brands wanting to use online video to attract young audiences should be featuring their videos on branded fan pages on Facebook and other similar networks.
Steve Mellor, senior social media expert at Harris Interactive, argues that with 44% of UK teens logging onto social networking sites every day, this is a mainstream place to interact with youngsters.
Harris Interactive polled a group of 13 to 15-year-olds on their feelings about fan pages on Facebook. Both the Adidas Originals page and Compare the Market’s “Compare the Meerkat” page were looked at in detail to find out what young people thought. Most of the group felt that fan pages and video on those pages weren’t being used as sales tools.
Compare the Market’s meerkat ad “outtakes” – made specifically for the fan pages – were particularly well received and perceived as worthwhile viewing even though they featured the company’s marketing messages. Mellor explains: “They didn’t see it as advertising; they saw it as entertainment.”
Even the Government has dabbled with online video to push its messages about knife crime on YouTube. A story about a group of young men aims to get people interacting with the message by asking viewers to “choose an ending” to the story, selecting whether the video stars would be stabbed or safe.
But if used correctly, online video isn’t confined to a youth audience, it can appeal to all age groups, argues Suveer Kothari, head of YouTube in the UK which has more video views than any other website.
He says the ability to share and comment as well as wielding control over the content takes online video from a purely commercial level to one of entertainment, appealing to all age groups.
Adverts that fall into the entertainment category can have far more reach than only information-based clips, which can make the content more commercially effective. Kothari argues: “If the ad is being creative it fits into consumers lives – it’s just as much about content as it is advertising. That’s really critical for its effectiveness.”
Case study: Samsung
Promoting a mobile phone to a teenage audience requires a brand to build a certain amount of street cred. When Samsung wanted to promote its music handset portfolio, The Beat Edition, it launched a video-based music show on Bebo.
The branded content produced by Endemol for the electronics brand provides Bebo users with music news, videos and interviews while advertising the phone. The show is played out on a screen wrapped with the shape of the Beat handset and during the show, presenters use the phone. More than 3.2 million people have viewed the videos since the launch claims Bebo.
Samsung UK marketing director Mikah Martin-Cruz says using video on a social networking site has allowed the brand to communicate the core values of the phone to the right audience.
He says: “When you look at social media it enables us to engage with Bebo users with unique content that really builds advocacy with our target audience.”
Agency Octagon co-ordinated the campaign. Garry Dods, vice-president of music and entertainment, says using online video is the right way to tell the story of the Beat phone.
He says the show allows teenagers to interact with the brand rather than simply seeing it as advertising. “Effectively you’ve got kids who see themselves as champions of their own lifestyle. Here’s a show that empowers them. They write it and they host it. They’re having a constant interaction back and Samsung is responding to their comments.”
A partnership deal has extended the experience to eight monthly live events called Samsung Bebo Nights Live at the Gibson Guitar Studio, with content from the offline events made available to watch online.
Samsung is looking to use this format to promote other products to different target groups. Martin-Cruz says: “Online content is incredibly important to us and it makes sense to export this across a number of other product markets and target audiences.”
He adds that using Bebo as an advertising vehicle has enabled the brand not only to advertise its products in an engaging, entertaining way to its target market but kicked off a creative campaign that goes far beyond the computer screen.
Case study: Philips
The glitz and the glamour of the Cannes Film Festival is an annual media obsession. And electronics brand Philips took advantage of this to promote its new Ambilight television set by working with video-sharing site Dailymotion to host footage from Cannes inside a special player designed to look like the new product.
Ambilight marketers were keen to make sure people understood how viewing the new TV set would make them feel by associating it with entertaining footage.
This is a trend that is set to continue, argues Luc Dumont, vice-president for international expansion at video service Dailymotion. He says it allows consumers to engage with the brand. “The Philips video showed how the media can blend in within the experience around content, technology and branding.”
But Dumont believes there’s much more potential for brands to use online video in future and claims: “We’re just touching the surface of it but the audience is there to make it a successful proposition.”
Readers' comments (1)
Julia Hudson | Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:27 pm
That's interesting, but what's the application of video to B2B marketing?
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